‘Immoral’ thieves steal gravedigger from Long Sutton stonemason

‘Immoral’ thieves have broken into a stonemason business and stolen machinery used for digging graves.

The incident took place at 2.15am yesterday (Tuesday) morning at Long Sutton-based Richard King Memorials, when a JCB 8014 was taken.

“They forced entry into a locked compound, so grinded off where the padlock is,” explained business owner Steve Baker.

“We’ve seen them on the camera getting everything else out the way and taking the digger on a trailer.”

Mr Baker added that the theft will impact his business.

“We’ve got three services today,” he continued.

“Obviously it impacts what we can do and it directly impacts families.

“Luckily today it doesn’t as we’re already prepared, but we have graves booked in and I need to react to that quickly. It has a massive impact.

“We can still dig graves, we can dig by hand and there’s people out there we can tap into to get it sorted, but regardless you’ve got to be immoral to be robbing a gravedigger from a stonemason to be honest.

“It’s going to hurt straight away and we all know what insurance companies are like so that may take a bit of time. There’s still a financial impact to the business.”

As news of the theft broke, the community has rallied around, offering help to the business.

“It’s quite a close-knit area so we’ve already had people asking to see if they can check their cameras and let us know if they’ve found anything,” Mr Baker said.

“There’s been a quite a big blow-up on Facebook. We work with a lot of families in the area and I think it’s bothered quite a few people, and it’s bothered me that you’d rob from a gravedigger.”