Grave thief jailed after grieving mother puts tracking device inside a teddy bear
A MOTHER hunted down a heartless thief who stole from her murdered son’s grave by stitching a tracking device in a teddy bear.
Mother-of-four Joan Holland, 50, who has visited the grave of her 16-year-old son Andrew every Sunday for seven years, was devastated when items started going missing.
Carer Joan, whose son was stabbed to death in Bolton in 2007, said: “I can’t give him money or buy him things. So I buy things for his grave.
The tracking device led Joan and her 31-year-old son Martin to a flat police described as an Aladdin’s cave
“That small comfort has been scarred – it has been ruined for me.”
The tracking device led Joan and her 31-year-old son Martin to a flat police described as an Aladdin’s cave that included a porcelain doll and an angel that had gone missing from Andrew’s grave months earlier.
Anthony Balshaw, 48, was jailed for 12 months for theft on Friday.