A FLINTSHIRE woman was left heartbroken after she found that callous thieves had stolen a memorial from her mother’s grave.

Lisa Cotton, from Flint, visits her mother Helen’s grave at the London Road cemetery, Flint, at least three times a week and on a recent visit was distraught to discover that a teddy bear ornament had been stolen.

Miss Cotton, 38, had placed the ceramic bear, which is about five inches tall and sitting on a chair reading, on the grave at Christmas.

She told the Leader: “I have put a wooden fence around the grave and I put plants and ornaments there for mum. Every Christmas I always get her a different ornament, but when I went it had gone.

“I was really upset about it. Everyone has got their own little ornaments and I just can’t understand why someone who has been there to pay their respects to someone else would steal something off another grave. It’s just awful.”

Miss Cotton said she was very close to her mother and they lived together at her Salisbury Street home before she died of a heart attack five years ago, aged 70.

She added: “I am an only child and we were very, very close. She was very special to me and it was hard for me when she died, but we decided to put her up there so I could go and see her regularly.

"I know it’s not a big robbery, but it’s the sentimental reason more than anything.”

It would have been Mrs Cotton’s birthday on Sunday and Miss Cotton says she is now wary of putting another memorial on the grave.

She added: “Every birthday and Christmas I always take another little ornament but I’m a bit wary now.

"The money is not the point, but I don’t want to spend £5 or £10 on an ornament if it’s going to get stolen again.”

A spokesman from Flintshire Council, which is responsible for the cemetery, said: “We have very few such incidents at the London Road cemetery, and at our other cemeteries across the county but we have asked the council's community wardens to carry out more random visits to London Road Cemetery.