Boy bakes pies to replace chef's stolen batch

An 11-year-old autistic boy will travel more than 100 miles to show support to a Michelin-starred chef after thousands of his homemade pies were ruined.

A van containing 2,500 pies made for sale at York Christmas Market was stolen on Sunday and later found damaged, along with the pastries inside.

After reading about the story, budding chef Joshie Harris, who is non-verbal, decided to bake replacement pies.

Together with his father Dan, the youngster is planning to travel from their home in Peterborough to York at the weekend to deliver the batch to Tommy Banks, who runs award-winning restaurants in North Yorkshire.

The pies made by Mr Banks, worth £25,000, had been set to be delivered to the St Nicholas Fair event when the refrigerated van was snatched from a business park in Melmerby, near Ripon.

Cleveland Police said it was found abandoned with false number plates in the Hemlington area of Middlesbrough.

Joshie's dad said "chefs stick together" and that's why his son wanted to help

The pies were still in the van, but had perished by the time the vehicle was recovered.

Mr Harris said he and Joshie were reading about the story and afterwards his son typed a message on his iPad, which he uses to communicate.

"At the end he said 'I see sad man, pies finished' and it blew my mind that he had that kind of comprehension.

"It makes me incredibly proud that he could read the sentiment of the news article and understand that the man was sad."

Since then, Joshie has been busy making dozens of pies, including the same flavours as the ones stolen, as well as his favourite, apple pie.

Mr Harris said he had been in touch with Mr Banks and was hoping they would be able to hand them to him on Saturday.

Tommy Banks runs a number of restaurants in North Yorkshire

He said if the chef was unable to use all of Joshie's pies, then they would take the surplus to be donated to a food bank.

"Joshie doesn't speak but cooking and baking is his way of showing creativity," Mr Harris added.

"He wanted to show especially at Christmas that these kinds of things shouldn't be happening.

"Also, it shows how that even though Joshie can't speak, he can still be an active member of society doing good."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.