A TERMINALLY-ILL woman is hoping to shame heartless thieves who stole her garden lights.

Dawn Davies, of Wyke Regis, Weymouth, said that she loved looking out of her window at her garden but that thieves had taken away that pleasure from her when they stole five solar-powered garden lights.

The 55-year-old, of Lea Road, used to enjoy gardening but can’t do it now as she only has the use of part of one hand.

She said she has been targeted by thieves before.

Mrs Davies, who attends the Trimar hospice in Wey-mouth twice a week and is currently undergoing treatment for her condition, said: “I’m terminally ill with cancer. The only joy I have left in life is to look out the window at the garden.”

She added: “They have taken away that pleasure from me by stealing them.

“I can’t afford to keep buying more.

“I just think they are scum to be honest to do something like that.”

Mrs Davies said she had gone away for the weekend and returned to find the lights gone. They used to be around a concrete train and trailers in a square.

The train wasn’t touched but the lights were taken.

The five lights changed colour through the spectrum. Last year Mrs Davies had garden lantern lights taken.

She said: “It’s upset me so much because they could have just knocked the door.”

Mrs Davies said that if the thieves had wanted the lights so much she would have given them to them.

She said: “I don’t understand why I have been targeted.”

By speaking out about the crime Mrs Davies said she is hoping the thieves will think about what they have done and in future think about the impact of their actions on others.

She said she wanted them to ‘think about what people are going through’.

Mrs Davies added: “Haven’t they got a conscience about what they do?”

She added that she was angry that street lights in the area had been turned off at night.

She said: “I think that if the lights had been on someone might have seen something.”

Street lights have been turned off in many residential parts of Dorset between midnight and 5.30am to save money.

They have been kept on in town centres, where CCTV is in operation and in high crime areas.

A Dorset County Council spokesman said: “Residential streets in Wyke Regis are part of the area where streetlights have been turned off between midnight and 5.30am GMT.

“We provide the street lighting to improve the safety of the highway rather than to light private property.

“Any relationship between an increase in crime and the lights being switched off is a matter for the police.”

A Dorset Police spokesman said the decision to turn off street lights was a local authority decision although the police had consulted along with other partner agencies.

• Police are investigating the theft of Mrs Davies’ solar lights, which measure about 30-40cm high.

They were taken some time between April 27-30.

Witnesses and anyone with information can contact Dorset Police in confidence on 101.