A councillor has been left ‘heartbroken’ after thieves returned to her house steal her pet tortoise days after ransacking her home.
Pat Gregory said she lost thousands of pounds worth of possessions in the burglary, which took place during the last week of August at her home in Enfield, north London.
Councillor Gregory had been visiting her son in hospital in Stoke-on-Trent when she returned and found her home had been destroyed between Tuesday, August 27 and Thursday, August 29.
In a further blow, the culprits came back to her property and took her pet tortoise Rainbow on September 1.
She said Rainbow is on a ‘special diet’ and ‘medication’ and could die if he doesn’t receive proper care.
Councillor Gregory, who has kept Rainbow alongside fellow tortoise Warrior for more than 38 years, said she is ‘praying’ for his return.
She told Metro: ‘I do not want to prosecute, I just want my tortoise back.’
Urging the thieves to do ‘the one decent thing in their lives and bring him back,’ she is offering a £200 reward and ‘no questions asked’ for his return.
Warrior is said to be appears equally distressed about the disappearance of his decades-long companion.
Gregory, 75, said: ‘Warrior is not eating. He is wandering around aimlessly looking for his partner. They have been together all these years. It is heartbreaking.’
Having returned from a stay with her seriously ill son on August 29, the councillor for Bush Hill Park was relieved to find both her pet reptiles safe after finding her home ransacked of precious jewellery and sentimental belongings.
Rainbow, who is microchipped and nine by twelve inches in size, has a distinctive white mark on his shell, although the councillor believes that it might now have been removed by his captors.
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Gregory, who was previously a contestant on Deal or No Deal in the mid-2000s and won, ‘kept wishing he would turn up’.
She has since spent £2,500 on a large iron gate and spiked railings to protect her property.
Of the damage to her property, Gregory added: ‘They trashed it and everything. It is a complete mess.’
Thieves had even used a crowbar to rip an empty safe from her walls, she added.
In an effort to protect her safe pet tortoise, Gregory said Warrior is now staying with a friend. ‘I cannot risk having him here, for them to come back and take him’, she said.
Rainbow and his companion Warrior are both named after the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was involved in campaigns against whaling, seal hunting and nuclear testing in the 1970s and 1980s, before sinking in 1985.
The Metropolitan Police was contacted for comment.
In relation to the burglary, anyone with information should call police on 101 and quote crime reference number CAD 6549/29AUG24.
