Storm Babet: Mexborough thieves steal £30,000 from flood-hit couple

A COUPLE say they lost their life savings when thieves stole more than £30,000 in cash and moved it from their flooded home during Storm Babbitt.

Phil and Dawn Henderson run Ferryboat Farm Fisheries, a campsite in Old Denaby, Mexborough, South Yorkshire.

The couple lives in a single-storey house on the site, which has been flooded three times before, and moved the money, as well as jewelery and clothes, into a mobile home.

Police are investigating the incident, which occurred on Friday, October 20.

Mr Henderson believes the thieves saw him and his wife moving their belongings into the mobile home in the early hours of the morning.

He said they began moving items into the mobile home just before midnight on October 19, when the Met Office issued a three-day warning of heavy rain and flooding for eastern England, the Pennines and Scotland.

Because their home suffered significant flood damage in 2007, 2019 and 2022, they moved as much as they could out of the building.

The house is now “completely destroyed” and stands in “half an inch of brown mud,” he said.

He said: They were watching us for an hour and a quarter.

“We put all of our belongings into this mobile home an hour ago, which was two handbags and another bag full of gold, my wife’s engagement ring, a diamond ring, her mother’s gold, gold cards, St. Christopher’s, all the gold we had.” d collected through all our lives.

“At 01:15 GMT we left the motorhome to go back inside the house, and at around 01:20 GMT we returned and I could see the umbrella from under the double bed at the back of the motorhome scattered on the floor.

“I said someone came in. Dawn said ‘check the money,’ so I said it was gone.”

Mr Henderson said he and his wife had planned to pay the cash to the bank, but Ms Henderson was afraid to walk into Doncaster city center with so much money.

They were saving money to pay for their son’s tombstone, after he died last year at the age of 36.

“I sold three mobile homes, two motorcycles, just trying to get money to buy a headstone. I can deal with flooding but I can’t deal with this,” Henderson said.

South Yorkshire Police said: “We were called to reports of a burglary on October 20 at 1.24am. He said the interior of their home had been destroyed.

“A large sum of cash and jewelry was reported stolen from a pickup truck.

He added: “Officers have completed surveillance camera investigations in the area, and investigations are still ongoing.”

Henderson praised Doncaster City Council, which he said helped him rebuild the road to the site and repair his property.