‘Who would do such a thing?’: Key worker’s birthday parcel taken from front garden of Northampton home

A key worker who celebrated her birthday last week has been left shocked after a parcel was taken from her front garden.

Irene White, who works in administration at Berrywood Hospital, returned from work on her birthday (Thursday April 23) expecting to find a Moonpig parcel.

The package, sent by Irene’s sister who lives in London, contained flowers and a card, but wasn't at Irene’s home in Duston when she returned from work.

Irene said: “My sister had told me it has been delivered so I looked in the bushes and behind the bins as sometimes parcels are left there, but I couldn’t find it.

“I checked with neighbours and the tracking and it said it had been delivered at 10.24am, so my sister had to get in contact with Moonpig.

“The driver had left it near the front door, in a sparse tree, so part of it was visible from the road, but that is not the point.”

When she realised the flowers and card, packaged in a pink box, were not there, Irene checked the cameras that she has on her Timken Way home and saw two people walking past.

She added: “The woman walked in and carried the box out.

“This was about 12.20pm so the box had been there for a couple of hours and it was a sunny day so there were people walking up and down.”

The theft has left Irene feeling 'annoyed', especially as she is working long hours and has not seen her family who live in London for a long time.

“In this situation and in these times people should be kinder. It’s disgusting,” Irene continued.

“I’m more annoyed than anything, but it’s upsetting to think that someone could take something that is clearly a gift and it would have been pretty light so they must’ve thought it could probably be flowers.

“I know the situation is hard, but flowers are not something you can do anything with.

“Who would do such a thing? It’s just not a nice thing to do.”

Irene did report the theft to the police, not expecting to get the items back, but just ‘out of principal’.

She said: “I just think let them see this, so they think about not doing it to someone else.

“My main purpose is to make sure they don’t do it again.”

A spokeswoman for Northamptonshire Police confirmed that incident happened.

Anyone who witnessed the theft or knows any information is urged to call police on 101.

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