East Cambridgeshire police urged anyone with information on a recent spate of thefts of garden statues and garden ornaments from the region to come forward this week.

Detectives also said that anyone who is approached by strangers with a view to buying garden statues should also come forward.

Items such as a two-foot tall statue of a concrete elephant, a wide range of ceramic pots, an ornamental chimney, a three-feet high ornamental Victorian chimney pot, an urn on a pedestal, a terracotta ball, cone and cylinder, a garden statue of a sandstone dog, another garden statue of a woman wearing a hat and pushing a wheelbarrow measuring three feet high, plus some metallic square planters are among the ornaments snatched from gardens, Detective Inspector Donna Wass told the local paper, adding that police believe the thieves will try to sell them on.