Plaques commemorating the deaths of Sheffield locals have recently been stolen from City Road Cemetery only a few days before Mothers Day weekend.
The plaques were first reported stolen on Facebook by Catherine Sweeney.
She apologised to anyone finding out through her post and went further to say: “I’ve just been to City Road Cemetery to place flowers on my mum & grandads grave then on to my father in laws plaque to find that some LOW LIFE has stolen a wall full of loved ones plaques.”
Locals with plaques at the memorial garden have been visiting the site today to check that the last physical reminders of their loved ones haven’t been stolen from them.
A woman who didn’t want to be named was visiting to check if her step father’s memorial plaque was still there.
ShefNews was there when she found it where it was meant to be and she looked visibly relieved.
The woman was holding back tears when she said: “It’s disgusting, I just don’t get why they’ve done it, it doesn’t make sense, you’re stealing from the dead, it’s awful is what it is.
“That’s why I’ve come because I wanted to make sure my dad was still here. I’m lucky he’s still here but there’s loads of people that are missing, they’re literally ripped off the wall, there’s people that have come down and they’re gone, it’s awful, it’s absolutely disgusting.”
David Fletcher and Margaret Fletcher an elderly couple, had come to visit their parents’ plaque. Mrs Fletcher said: “It looks to me as if it’s the newer ones that have been taken because ours has been up since 2003, it’s because of the metal, I think it’s brass.
“You can’t imagine how much heartbreak it’s going to cause for people bringing flowers on mothers day”
Mr Fletcher said: “You just wonder why do you want to steal things like that, it’s bad enough stealing owt but from a cemetery.”
Sheffield city council have said: “if your plaque has gone missing you can choose a tree to place flowers under and we won’t remove anything that’s at the bottom for a few weeks but please don’t hammer anything into the tree.”
On a piece of paper taped to the wall of missing plaques, a message from the council said they are currently in the process of going through the records to see if anyone was affected and urged anyone with queries to contact the bereavement office at bereavement.services@sheffield.gov.uk.