Widow, 81, tells how thieves snatched her bag at graveside

[dutchman]

An 81-year-old widow has told how thieves snatched her bag as she visited the grave of her husband and son in Coventry.



The shocking theft, at London Road Cemetery came three weeks after Agnes Teahan was diagnosed with bone cancer for the third time.

Police have issued a warning to others not to visit the cemetery alone after a spate of graveside thefts.

Agnes’s handbag contained a purse given to her by her son William Hennessey, who died of pneumonia eight years ago, aged 48.

Returning from another doctor’s appointment yesterday, a tearful Agnes told the Telegraph: “The whole thing’s made me sick.

"That purse had sentimental value but they’ve probably just thrown it in the bin. Since then I get these awful feeling. It’s like as if I’m dying.

“You don’t expect something like that in a sacred place. I go up every week and have to get two buses. Even when I’m sick I still go up.

“They have no respect and no compassion.”

Police are hunting three suspects - described as two women and a man in their late teens to early 20s - after the bag snatch at 10.30am on Saturday near the Cheylesmore gate.

Agnes, of Wyken, was left stranded without a bus fare home. A kind-hearted couple at the cemetery gave her £4 to get home and called police.

The bag also contained £30 and various credit cards.

Agnes said: “The grass was pretty high so I was pulling as much as I could away from the kerb.

“Three people came over. I assumed they were coming over to see a grave or something. I said to one of them ‘be careful going over there, there’s big pot holes in the grass’.