Heartless thieves target ornamental garden

[dutchman]

Christmas has been ruined for a couple in Nuneaton after heartless thieves stole ornaments from their eye catching garden.



Billy and Marty Mckeown had transformed the front of their house into what they called a character garden, filled with animal statues - which have been snatched from their home in King’s View.

“It has ruined our Christmas, we spent a couple of hundred pounds on creating a Christmas themed garden and we’re not going to put that up now, we’re going to give them away.

“It’s put us off our Christmas, if we didn’t have the grandkids we would take all the Christmas decorations down because I don’t even want a Christmas now.”

The garden filled them, and passers by with joy but Mr and Mrs Mckeown have now vowed that they are finished after the ‘sickening’ incident.

Billy said: “I apologise to the people in the community but there’s not going to be another garden like that, I’m done.

“People were passing in cars, people stopped to take photos, there’s nothing like that anywhere else in the area.

“There was nothing that made me more proud than when people were passing and the kids’ faces lit up when they saw it.

“The smile on their face made me and the wife feel proud but I am not doing it any more.

“We are not spending more money just to have it ruined by scum.

“I feel sorry not just for us but I feel sorry for the kids.”



On Thursday morning Billy and Marty woke up to find their large gorilla, three wise monkeys and a meerkat ornaments missing.

Billy said he was physically sick when he realised. He added: “It seems like they were targeting those ornaments because they are expensive,

“They have gone for the good stuff.

“It’s not the money though, it’s the work and the thought that we put into it.”

Heartbroken Billy is gutted that all his hard work on the garden has now been ruined by the cruel thieves.

When the Mckeowns moved into the house just over a year ago, they were excited to have a garden to work on.

“When we moved here we couldn’t realise how lucky we were and we couldn’t wait to work on the garden.

“We worked so hard on it.”

This isn’t the first time the garden has been targeted, a wishing well which Marty bought for her best friend. It was given to her when her friend died of lung cancer three years ago.

Billy added: “I have seen her cry over that wishing well.

“You can’t say they don’t know what they’re doing because they do know what harm they are causing, they just don’t care.”

A CCTV camera has now been installed as the Mckeowns are scared that the thieves may come back again.

If you think you may have seen any of the ornaments, call police on 101.