"It makes me sick to my stomach. Words fail me."
That was the reaction of St Andrew's Hospice patient Kellie Gray after the THIRD break-in at one of the hospice's charity shops.
Around £400 worth of jewellery was stolen after thieves smashed their way into the shop in Grimsby's West St Mary's Gate on Saturday morning – just weeks after thieves stole £215 from the charity shop in Cromwell Road.
In April, heartless criminals stole hospice collection pots from the Imperial pub in Cleethorpes, depriving the charity of more than £400, and in May vandals smashed windows at the newly-opened hospice shop in Skegness.
Kellie Gray, 39, who has an untreatable condition which has left her stomach paralysed since the age of 11, is a regular patient at the Peaks Lane site and said she was sickened to hear of the latest incident.
It is believed the thieves scaled rooftops to break into the first floor of the premises, smashing a back room window and squeezing through a narrow gap between security bars.
They went downstairs into the shop itself and stole jewellery from display cabinets, discarding boxes around the floor. They were disturbed by a security guard who responded to the alarm. They fled through an upstairs window.
"I don't know how they can sleep at night," said Kellie.
"People have made sacrifices to raise that money, whether its the volunteers in the shops or people donating their belongings, and it's heartbreaking.
"I doubt these people will read this but I hope somehow the message will reach them. They might get a kick out of it but I just hope none of their families ever need a hospice."
Kellie, who lives in Market Rasen, has a very rare form of gastroparesis, though it took a number of years to be diagnosed.
She has also had diabetes complications for the past 13 years, leaving her unable to work.
She is dependent upon feeding tubes for much of her food and spends a day a week at the hospice, as well as regular respite stays.
She said the impact of the hospice on her life in the past five years has been "immense".
"I don't know what I'd do without it," she said.
"It's so vital to patients and their families and every penny counts to ensure continuity of care.
"But I think of the children's hospice more when I hear about these thefts. We're not here for a laugh, we're here because the hospice gives us a quality of life.
"When you come here there's an unspoken understanding of positivity, you meet people who have had it bad, you can come here not wanting to face anything but gradually it changes."
Emily Appleton, the hospice's retail operations manager, said of the latest break-in: "This is a very distressing incident, occurring just weeks after another of our shops in Grimsby was also targeted by a thief.
"Thankfully security is very high at all of our shops and security was on the scene within minutes.
"Nevertheless, it's very unpleasant and an insult to not only those who donate to our shops, but to our many patients with life-limiting illnesses."
All of the hospice's shops are staffed by volunteers.
Emily added: "Our volunteers arrived at the store on Saturday morning to open up and found empty jewellery boxes littered all over the floor. Naturally, they were very upset."
Sue Davis, a volunteer at the hospice, opened the shop first thing on Saturday morning. She said: "I must have been there at about 7.40am to open the shop as I normally do, and the alarm was working fine.
"I found counters had been cleared and there were boxes of jewellery all over the floor. To have this happen so soon after the first incident is very frustrating."
If you have any information in connection with any of the incidents, call police on 101 quoting crime reference number AA/2057582.
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