A HEARTBROKEN Stourport widow has issued an emotional appeal for the return of her late husband’s wheelchair after it was stolen.

Thieves broke into a metal shed at the back of Jackie Woodall’s static caravan and stole the black Sport 2000 wheelchair along with 20 bottles of wines and spirits and other items intended for a charity event in aid of Kemp Hospice.

The incident is believed to have happened at Stourport Caravan Park in Redstone Lane, between Wednesday, July 5 and Friday, July 7 while Mrs Woodall was visiting a friend in Wales.

But the theft has left the 57-year-old devastated as her beloved husband Steve – a former senior nursing officer - died in December last year at the age of 60.

She said that since his death she had loaned the chair to other families on the caravan park who had terminally ill relatives.

Mrs Woodall, a former nurse herself, has been working voluntarily in a variety of roles for Kemp Hospice as a way of repaying the care and support it provided for her and her husband before his death.

She said: “The wheelchair isn’t valuable but it has a lot of sentimental value to it and this has left me heartbroken.

“I can replace the bottles that were stolen but I just want to get the chair back. It has Steve’s name on it and it means so much to me. I think they took the chair to carry the bottles away.

“Being a nurse, Steve wanted to help others and he’d have wanted others to benefit from the wheelchair and I was so happy to lend it to neighbours who needed it.

“There are many people looking for it and Stourport Neighbourhood Watch have been fantastic in supporting me.”

Mrs Woodall, who has a 37-year-old son Leigh and a grandson Owen James Steve – who was born shortly after her Mr Woodall died - added that her husband was well known throughout the town.

“He had a valve in his throat which he needed to use to talk and people often called him Darth Vader.

“Kemp went above and beyond to help me and so I wanted to do something as a way of giving back. The charity event at the park on August 5 is to help raise funds for them.”

Anyone with information with the theft is asked to call police on 101 and quote incident number 22DD60537A17.