Peterborough church left devastated after collection for Royal British Legion stolen in break in

Worshippers at the Parish of Sacred Heart and St Oswalds on Lincoln Road were devastated after they arrived on Sunday (November 6) to find that the building had been broken into.

They discovered that on Saturday night, vandals had smashed a window of the Roman Catholic church and gained access to steal the collection for the Royal British Legion that the church had been running for the past few weeks.

Fortunately, the morning service was able to go ahead as normal but the window had to be boarded up and the church has been left with the repair bill.

Priest Arockiya Seelan Poobalan said: “For people not to have faith is fine but for them to have no respect for their country like this is shocking.”

Pastoral Assistant Tracey Penn, who first discovered the damage added: “I came to unlock and church on Sunday morning was shocked to find it like it was.

“I phoned the police and we managed to get it boarded up but we will have to repair the damage ourselves.

"We have a congregation of between 150 and 200 people each week and many of them are elderly. They were very disturbed by the news when they arrived.”

Police have confirmed that they found evidence of intruders smashing a window to get in and steal a collection for the Poppy Appeal.

Anyone who has any information has been asked to call 101 quoting incident 118 of 6 November.