Charity donations stolen from Halloween display

Thieves have stolen charity donations from a Halloween display which took months to prepare.

Philip Pattinson has been putting on displays at his home in Whitehaven for the past six years and this year is raising money for Hospice at Home West Cumbria.

But on Thursday morning, he discovered this year's wrestling-themed display had been damaged and a collection box with a week's worth of donations had been taken.

"I think if it had just been my stuff, I'd have just been angry, but I just started feeling sad, the money's for charity and somebody's stolen that money that people have donated," Pattinson told BBC Radio Cumbria.

"Part of the ticket booth was on the floor, when I had a look someone had broken in and taken the charity bucket out."

The bucket was left outside so people could visit the display when nobody was home and Pattinson said he did not know how much was in it.

"Sometimes there's loose change, sometimes when we open up the buckets, there's notes in, so we just don't know what's been put in," he said.

He said the actions had left locals shocked.

The theft is not the only setback Pattinson has suffered this year, with storms Austen and Boelo damaging the display last weekend.

He said he had to remove a fake dead body from a tree and lie it on his lawn and reapply "a lot of hair" to a spider which stands more than 2m (6.5ft) tall.

However, he and his wife plan to continue raising as much money as they can for the hospice.

They said visitors traveled from as far as Carlisle 38 miles (61km) away, just to see the displays.

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