Hopefield Animal Sanctuary, Brentwood raises £9k after break-in

On March 5, Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Sawyers Lane posted on Facebook detailing broken fencing around its premises and a stolen ranger buggy.

Although the buggy remains unretrieved, people have rallied together to raise more than £9,000.

Manager Lianne Angliss said: “We posted on social media just to let people know what had happened and quite a few people commented asking us to set up a fundraiser as people were wanting to donate.

Lianne Angliss has worked at Hopefield Animal Sanctuary for the past 20 years (Image: Hopefield Animal Sanctuary) “It was actually the public’s idea and then we obviously got the response that we did.

“We didn’t expect the generosity – everything is tight at the moment and people are struggling so the generosity was amazing.”

Alarms were raised initially when staff members found horses in the wrong fields one morning in the first week of March.

“We thought they (the horses) just had busted the gate and gone in different directions so it hadn’t really registered that it might have been someone’s doing,” said Lianne.

“We put them into the right fields and then went looking for the buggy – we went round the fields to make sure it wasn’t sat somewhere strange.

Lianne said that multiple areas of fencing had been broken when the buggy had been stolen (Image: Hopefield Animal Sanctaury) “We then started piecing things together and we noticed that the fence at the back, where no animals are usually kept, had been driven over and you could still see the tracks.

“We then started backtracking, following the tracks and found that all down the A12 there were bits of fencing that had been cut where people had obviously tried to enter or leave at various points.

“We were lucky though because where the fencing had been cut, we could have had animals escape all over the A12.”

According to Lianne, five other buggies had been stolen from nearby farms in that week alone and she even went to retrieve one that had been dumped before realising it was not the one that belonged to Hopefield.

JAC Groundwork & Civil Engineering has donated concrete blocks to be used as a security measure (Image: Hopefield Animal Sanctuary) Lianne and the team at Hopefield are “very grateful” for the reaction of local people and businesses, not only for their financial donations but for practical help that has been offered.

“We’ve always been embraced by the community and their response to this shows that we still are.

“We’ve got some new security cameras up – we did have some before but they weren’t up at the spots that were broken into.

“We’ve been donated some huge concrete blocks by JAC Groundwork & Civil Engineering and have also had fencing work offered – slowly but surely we’re repairing the place.”

An Essex Police spokesperson said: “We received a report of a buggy worth a four-figure sum stolen from the Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Sawyers Hall Lane, Brentwood between midnight on March 3 and 11pm on March 4.

“If you have any information, CCTV, dashcam or other footage in relation to this incident, then please get in contact with us.

“Please quote the crime reference number 42/30289/25.”