Heartless thieves steal Burnley primary school prom funds

Staff at a Burnley primary school have been left devastated after callous crooks stole money pupils had raised to pay for their own prom.
By John Deehan
Published 17th Feb 2020, 16:04 BST
Updated 17th Feb 2020, 16:04 BST

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Whittlefield Primary School was broken into last weekWhittlefield Primary School was broken into last week
Whittlefield Primary School was broken into last week

The break-in happened just hours after Whittlefield Primary School had hosted its PTFA Valentine's Disco on Thursday evening.

Intruders smashed their way into the Tabor Street school at 2am ransacking one of the offices before making off with £750 in cash, which had been locked in a safe.

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Some of the money had been raised at the disco and was to go towards new playground equipment for the school.

The rest of amount had come through Year 6 pupils holding a number of fundraising events during the year so they could pay for their own prom.

PTFA chairman Fiona Kilburn said: "It's just horrible. The children had worked really hard to raise this money.

"It's an unusual situation because the school would never usually have this amount of money on the premises.

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"What makes it even worse is that the damage caused is not covered by our insurance so we're having to raise that money ourselves now."

The day after the burglary, a Facebook fundraiser page was set up by Whittlefield with Ightenhill councillor Emma Payne.

The page, which can be found here, smashed its £1,500 target in hours. Donations are being taken up until Thursday with all monies raised going to the school.