Family left 'heartbroken' at Stamford Cemetery grave plaque thefts

Sapper Oliver Smith is buried at Ramparts Cemetery in Belgium, with a memorial plaque in Stamford Cemetery

A family has been left "heartbroken" after four brass plaques commemorating other family members, including a soldier killed in World War One, were stolen from a Lincolnshire cemetery.

Police said it was believed the plaques were all taken from Stamford Cemetery within the last four weeks.

They included a tribute to Sapper Oliver Smith, who was killed in action in April 1918, aged 31.

His great great niece, 82, said the thefts had left her "horrified".

The memorial plaques to four family members were last seen on the grave on 8 August

Davina Ward said she noticed the plaques were missing from a family grave when she passed it as she went to lay flowers on her mother and father's plot elsewhere in the cemetery.

She said the stolen plaques had commemorated her great great uncle Oliver Smith and his sister, as well as Ms Ward's great great grandfather and great great grandmother.

"I thought I'd got lost because it looked different. I thought I was at the wrong grave at first", she said.

"Then I realised the four brass plaques had gone. They'd been unscrewed and taken. I was horrified.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought how could someone do that? A cemetery is supposed to be somewhere that is sacred."

Ms Ward said it was "so horrible" that someone could steal from a family grave

Ms Ward said the plaques had been in place when her daughter visited the cemetery on 8 August and must have been taken sometime after that date.

A spokesperson for Lincolnshire Police said: "Some things stand out as really wrong - and this is really wrong."

Anyone with information about the incident, or who has since seen the plaques, has been asked to contact Lincolnshire Police.