A GRANDMOTHER has slammed thieves who stole and broke items from a garden memorial to her daughter.

Sandra Harris helped her grandson 14-year-old Kevin Burrett to build a shrine to his mother, Laura Burrett, in the back garden of her home in Squirrels Lane, Booker.

Mrs Burrett died in August last year from organ failure when complications arose during major heart surgery at a London hospital. She was 42.

Mrs Harris, 63, says she cannot understand the mentality of thieves who took a windmill and statues from the memorial and damaged other memorabilia.

She said: "When I saw what they had done I felt sick. How could anyone be so evil to take sentimental things from a shrine?

"I told Kevin straight away and he was very upset and angry. I hope somebody will get a guilty conscience and bring her things back.

"When Laura died Kevin just needed something to do so we built the memorial together. Laura used to come home from her job as a trainee manager at Asda in Slough and sit on the concrete chair to watch the fish in the pond with a cup of tea.

"We decorated the chair with a rose arch, angel statues, candles, fresh flowers every week and elephant figurines, because she used to collect them."

Mrs Harris said she had travelled to Toad Hall Garden Centre in Henley to buy the windmill for the shrine at a cost of £170 and it would be impossible to replace without returning there.

She described her daughter as someone the entire family doted on.

She and her husband Ken now help care for Kevin, who lives in nearby Ash Road with his father, also named Kevin.

Her elder grandson, James, 20, organised his mother's funeral as he works for Arnolds funeral service in London Road, High Wycombe.

Anyone with information about the theft should call police on 08458 505 505 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.