COLD-hearted thieves broke into a Malvern charity and stole £1,600 of equipment intended to help elderly people in times of flooding.

George Waugh, chief officer of Age UK Malvern, discovered someone had broken into a store at the organisation’s Grange Road headquarters and made off with almost 70 cameras. The devices were intended for flood victims to take pictures damage to their homes. The same number of wind up radios and torches were also stolen.

The items were part of “emergency flood packs” that Age UK hands out to elderly people should the need arise. They have proved an important resource for local people, with more than 50 handed out to people in Malvern, Upton and Tenbury since the charity started keeping them last year.

“My first thought when I saw it was simply to ask how low can people go?” said Mr Waugh.

“They had gone through every single one of the packs and clearly taken the items they thought might be valuable. All the other items from the packs, like whistles and thermal blankets, had just been discarded.

“I was just astounded. It is quite obvious what these packs are for and they have deprived us of our ability to give older folks something that could potentially be very useful to them indeed in the right circumstances.”

Mr Waugh believes the theft must have taken place at some point over the weekend, as he made sure the heavy padlock on the store was secure before he left on Friday evening (August 3).

“But when I went out to the store at about 10.45am on Monday there was just no sign of the padlock,” he said. “They must have come pre-armed with bolt cutters but I cannot for one minute imagine that they knew what they were going to find.”

Police would like to hear from anyone who may have seen the break-in or seen any items fitting the description being offered for sale. Anyone with information should call 101 quoting 250S/060812.