Thieves steal large donation of cat food from charity

Helen Ledingham is a cat fosterer with the Rugby branch of Cats Protection.

Last Monday, February 27, a big donation of food from Purina was dropped off at her home to then be shared out among the other fosterers and volunteers.

It arrived just as she and her husband were going out to a funeral but thought the delivery was perfectly safe outside her house in Main Street, Newbold.

But when they returned two-and-a-half hours later she discovered thieves had got away with food worth £278.

Helen said: “As the pallet would be sat on my drive, which is situated on a nasty bend with no footpath, I trusted that it would be fairly safe until I got home.

“However, we arrived home to find an empty Aldi bag behind the pallet and a load of cat food missing.

“I don’t quite know what to say about this but could assume that the thieves think we are a well-off family topping up supplies for spoilt cats.

“This was much-needed food to help support the cats that we rescue and look after on an ongoing basis.

“We rely on charity donations and the goodwill of the public for facilitating us in the care of these cats and this stolen food was a good chunk of an annual donation.”

The loss could have been far worse if good neighbours hadn’t spotted something going on and challenged the thieves who then drove off.

“I was flabbergasted,” Helen said.

“At the end of the day it was just cat food but it was still somebody taking something that doesn’t belong to someone else.”

While the branch has enough fosterers at present, more volunteers are needed. Find out more at: www.cats.org.uk/rugby

The theft was reported to Warwickshire Police but Helen urged people to be alert to offers of cheap Felix sachets, adult and kitten and 15kg bags of Pro-Plan biscuits.