WHILE Wyre Forest clergy take action against metal thefts, a Stourport church has been left financially crippled by £80,000 of debt caused by criminals.

“We stopped counting at 15 episodes of metal theft in a space of two years,” said the Rev Eva McIntyre, of St Michael and All Angels. “It continued over the next 18 months until there was no metal left.”

The church was forced to fork out £80,000 to replace the lead roof with an alternative material. The money came out of the pockets of the congregation and from bequests.

“The account's empty now,”

added Ms McIntyre. “We’re in debt and struggling to raise the money to pay that debt off...We know that the boiler needs replacing but we haven’t got the money.”

She added: “There’s no metal on our roof at all now and it looks beautiful but the hurt and damage to the morale of the congregation will take a lot longer to heal than a roof repair.”

Archdeacon of Dudley, Fred Trethewey, said: “I have the greatest admiration for the resilience and faithfulness of members of churches where there have been repeated thefts of lead. To help prevent further dispiriting losses I and my colleagues are supporting national campaigns such as that being spearheaded by the Church Buildings Council (CBC) to bring about greater regulation of scrapyards.”

Chairman of CBC, Anne Sloman, said: “This is not a victimless crime – it strikes at the very communities the Government wishes to encourage and sustain.

“Coping with one theft of a church roof is disheartening, coping with successive thefts, as is often the case, is heart breaking.”

Wyre Forest’s MP, Mark Garnier, said that although selling scrap metal for cash will be banned, there is more to do. “Many laws are already in place to deal with all theft,”

said the Conservative.

“However, metal theft is difficult to gather evidence on so what I am doing, as vicechairman of the all party parliamentary group for metal theft, is work to make theft an easier crime to solve.”