AN appeal to thieves who stole a six-foot war memorial bearing the names of those who fought and died for their country has been made by the chairman of Earl's Croome Parish Council.

Penny Green said people in the villages had found it hard to believe anyone would take it.

"They're shocked and amazed that anybody could have the audacity to steal a war memorial," she said.

The wood and fibreglass memorial was stolen on the night of Wednesday, August 2.

The memorial has a figure of Christ on the cross and original brass plaques paying tribute to those from Earl's Croome and Hill Croome who fell in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.

Mrs Green added the council would meet next week to discuss the theft, and she has already contacted Baughton sculptor Nick Matthews about the possibility of replacing it.

The three-foot figure of Christ on the memorial was not the original, but had been painstakingly re-created by Mr Matthews out of glass fibre two years ago. He was commissioned by Hill Croome and Earl's Croome parish councils after the original was damaged in a road accident in 1999.

"It took me four or five weeks," he said. "It was a long job, but I didn't mind because it was for the village."

He was the second person to alert the police when he saw the memorial had vanished.

"I was absolutely gutted," he said. "I just couldn't believe it. I was flabbergasted. It makes me feel that there are a lot of really foul people out there."

He said he thought the crime was not the work of petty vandals, or that anyone had mistaken the figure of Christ to be made of bronze.

"They knew exactly what it was," he said.

"I would imagine it was stolen to order to go abroad. That would be the market for something like that."

He said the fact that a solid stainless steel bar a quarter of an inch thick had to be bent to wrest the memorial from its plinth indicates the theft was the work of a gang.

"Stainless steel is incredibly hard," he said, "So there was obviously a number of them. One person couldn't have done it."

Police spokesman Kim Stain agreed it was probably the work of more than one person in some sort of vehicle.

She appealed for anyone who heard a vehicle in the area between 7pm on the Wednes-day and 7am on the Thursday, or with any other information, to contact police on 01905 723888 quoting c/616520 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.