Stolen bike and scooter replaced in act of kindness

Thursday 14 June 2018

A woman has collected donations to pay for a replacement bike and scooter after a young girl found her birthday present had been stolen from her garden at home.

Devon's new purple bike was taken in the early hours of Thursday 7 June, along with a purple stunt scooter which had been bought previously.

Her mum, Karlie Le Marchant, said the bike and scooter had been stored in the garden of their home at Les Genats Estate, before she discovered they were missing, just four days after the little girl's 8th birthday.

She admitted they weren't locked up, but Ms Le Marchant said her daughter was heartbroken at the theft and she appealed to the public using Facebook to share images of the bike and scooter in the hope they would be returned to the family.

Almost a week on, the bike and scooter haven't been returned, but instead they have been replaced.

Bryony Nicholls saw the initial Facebook post last Thursday, and said she was disgusted by what she read.

Ms Nicholls was so moved by the story of the heartbroken birthday girl that she organised a collection to buy a replacement bike. She ended up with enough donations to also be able to afford to replace the scooter too.

"I wanted to organise this as I felt disgusted that someone would go into someone’s garden and take a brand new bike from on their doorstep," she said. "It has taken some time to collate the donations and it will take me some time driving around to collect some of them, but it was worthwhile to see the girls faces when I delivered the bike and the scooter."

Ms Nicholls took the two new items around earlier this week and surprised both the birthday girl, her sister and their mum with the donations. She said they had been achieved by generous discounts offered by local retailers as well as the monetary donations offered by members of the public.

"Both Cycleworld and Ian Browns gave me a discount off of the bike and the scooter," she said. "I am overwhelmed that the total was reached less than 24 hours after launching the campaign to try to replace the bike and that we managed to raise enough to also replace the stunt scooter that was stolen and belonged to Devon’s sister Ceeara."

Ms Nicholls was reluctant at first to speak to Express but Ms Le Marchant also gave her blessing as she wanted to thank her publicly. Ms Nicholls said it wasn't just down to her though.

"People have been amazing and everyone has pulled together to help this happen in true Guernsey spirit."