Cruel thieves have broken into a house in Pendlebury, Swinton, stealing a car used to get a disabled 11-year-old girl to school, pinching food from a fridge and weeing in a two-year-old toddler’s potty.
Homeowner Claire Worsley, 37, has waived her right to anonymity in the hope of shaming the burglars into returning the vehicle.
The car is a metallic silver Ford S-Max 7-seater, registration plate MV64 XHG.
The mum-of-six said she was feeling every emotion under the sun after the shocking burglary on Pontefract Close in Pendlebury, Swinton.
“I’m angry and upset.
“I just feel absolutely sick that they’ve come in and rifled through all my belongings.”
It’s thought to have happened some time between 2am and 5am this morning, Tuesday 11 August.
Around 6.20am this morning Claire’s 18-year-old daughter was due to get the bus to work at Barton Brook nursing home when she noticed the car missing from the front drive.
“She called me upstairs and asked me where the car was,” said Claire.
“I checked around and saw everything in the front room thrown into the garden and everything else missing, even food from the fridge.”
There have been other reports of break-ins in the Swinton area recently.
Around a month ago Claire was up at around 11.30pm and heard a noise outside her kitchen window.
“I felt something leaning agains the windowsill, I couldn’t see anything outside. Then there was a thud against the window, I panicked and ran upstairs to be honest.”
Her 11-year-old daughter suffers from cerebral palsy and will be one of the worst hit by the callous theft.
“She’s panicking now,” said Claire.
“If one thing is out of her control, she starts having fits and she can’t handle it.
The 11-year-old is also due to go to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital for reconstructive surgery on her arm this week, but the family now has no way to get her there.
She is due to start high school at St Ambrose Barlow in September but her new school uniform was also in the stolen car.
“She can’t judge distances very well due to her disability and she can’t get the bus.”
“She also doesn’t sleep very well. The thing that makes me most sick is that she was up a little later than me.
“She heard the noises and she thought it was her father coming home from working on the M1 motorway, so she almost went downstairs.
“If she had, she would have bumped into the burglars and god knows what would have happened.”
The thieves also took chicken nuggets, a packed of ham, a bottle of Pepsi, and a loaf of bread from the fridge, as well as packets of sausages and chips from the freezer.
“It’s not just the electronics, it’s stupid things they could get at a corner shop which have gone missing,” said Claire.
“I’ve not got any food in for the kids now.
“And the fact that they’ve wee’d in my two-year-old son’s potty. It’s just disgusting.
“My 13-year-old daughter was going to enter a Bake Off competition tomorrow and I’d taken out some money out to go and help get her the things she needed. They’ve had my handbag with that cash in it too. She’s just been crying her eyes out since it happened.”
Also gone are Claire’s Kindle e-reader and a Nokia Windows phone worth around £60 that was due to be her youngest daughter’s next birthday present.
Swinton Councillor Gina Merrett told SalfordOnline.com today: “I think the people who have done this are cowardly and inhumane.
“It’s a great pity this has happened to a family who could not afford to lose the food in their fridge, let alone a car. I find it totally abhorrent.”
Police are now studying CCTV on the estate in the hope of catching the cruel criminals.
Anyone who wants to offer any assistance to the family is welcomed to contact tom@salfordonline.com or call the newsdesk on 0161 789 5377.
Anyone with any information about the crime is asked to call Greater Manchester Police on 101, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
