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Vandals wreck Christmas display

14/12/2005

MEAN-SPIRITED vandals have trashed one of the displays featured in the Stockport Express's Christmas Lights Competition.

Dawn and Neil Kelly, of Carrington Road, Portwood, decided to give their home a festive flourish as this is the last Christmas they will spend in it with their two sons and a daughter before moving.

Neighbours were so impressed, one nominated the house as an entrant in the Express's competition, run with Focus DIY.

But in the early hours of Sunday morning thieves stole two illuminated Santas and attempted to take a giant train off the side of the house, leaving it destroyed on the floor.

Dawn, 42, said: "The front looked fantastic and the train, which is now in four pieces, was the centrepiece of the whole display.

"I think someone saw them and thought 'I'd like them for my house'. These people are spiteful, you don't steal Christmas decorations.

"We thought it's our last Christmas here so we'd do it for the children and people on the estate. My son David is distraught."

It had been David, 16, who suggested the display, which was up for two weeks.

The family spent several hundred pounds and neighbours asked when it was being turned on so they could watch.

But the lights were ruined when the thieves ripped out their power cords, which were fed indoors into the electricity supply.

"We won't let this spoil our Christmas," said Dawn, a catering assistant at Priestnall School.

"And no one should be put off decorating their house as it makes people look as they go past and puts a smile on their face."