Gobsmacked dad returns home to find front lawn missing in spate of neighbourhood thefts

Danny Baks, from Darwen, Lancashire, said that he felt something was wrong when he returned home and it was his daughter who pointed to the lawn having disappeared

A dad has told how he returned home and felt something was "off" before realising his front lawn had been stolen.

Danny Baks, from Darwen, Lancashire, had been away on an overnight trip on October 1 and it took his daughter to point out what was wrong when she said that the artificial grass had gone. The 43-year-old estimates the cost of the stolen patch of lawn to be between £10 and £100. And after conducting a small investigation of his own, he found that several other residents in the Darwen area have also been victims of similar crimes. Talking about the incident he said it was his daughter who asked him: "Where has the grass gone?" And then it dawned on him what had happened.

"I came home on Sunday morning with my daughter and something just looked off," Danny told LancsLive. "The penny didn't even drop straight away. As I was unlocking the door, my daughter turned around to me and said, 'Where has the grass gone?' I was like what, where's that gone? You don't expect someone to take a bit of artificial grass."

The stolen item measured approximately 11ft by 5ft, fitting in the space that Danny has between his front door and garden wall. Danny stated: "Obviously you don't want to lose between £80-100, whatever it was. But it's not like a gold diamond ring or anything like that, so who would want to take that?"

Danny observed on local social media pages that his neighbours and others in the immediate vicinity have also had some of their items stolen, particularly objects that were easily accessible in their gardens. He mentioned that one neighbour had a garden bench taken from the front of their house, and several people have had plant pots stolen as well.

Danny only moved into the property with his daughter at the beginning of April and installed the artificial grass towards the end of that month. However, because it's a rented property, Danny didn't consider securing the piece of grass to the ground, making it easier for the thieves to steal the lawn.

"It getting nicked doesn't really enter your head and it was quite heavy," he added. The father also announced that cameras will be installed outside his home to prevent this kind of incident from happening again. He said: "The repercussions from this though is, I have my daughter full-time and she's 12. She's now frightened that they'll come back and try and get in the house. So she's scared of being at home on her own now. So that's had a knock-on affect with her."