MUM Jade O’Connor is devastated after a thief stole her precious family keepsakes from her locked car while she was at a cemetery in Pinehurst.

The 25-year-old was at the grave of her grandparents, Danny and Bridie O’Connor, at Whitworth Road Cemetery when someone smashed her car window and took her handbag from a back seat.

The bag contained the cross from her grandmother’s rosary, and a broken locket containing a photo of her son Luca Mazzotta, as well as a £100 cheque, £20 in cash, her bank cards and make-up.

Jade had previously seen a man acting strangely and staring at her in the cemetery, before running off in the direction of her car, and she believes he is the thief, although she did not see the crime.

Jade, of Ferndale, said: “I couldn’t sleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I could just see him watching me. And it’s horrible losing everything. I’ve got to buy a new bag, I haven’t got a purse, I’m never going to get my locket or my cross back.

“And to him, it doesn’t mean anything but to me it does. He has probably thrown it in a bush. I couldn’t believe that he would do that, for all he knows I could have just buried my nan or something.”

Jade said she saw the man hanging around and acting strangely when she drove up to the cemetery at about 12.30pm on Monday.

She parked her car in the driveway and covered her bag with scarves on a back passenger seat.

While she was tending the grave, she noticed a man watching her about 10 gravestones away, so she phoned her boyfriend Nick Mazzotta, 25, to come down for protection.

No one else was in the cemetery at the time.

After she got off the phone, the two looked at each other briefly, and then he ran off in the direction of the car.

When Jade returned to the car, she found someone had smashed a small window on the front left passenger side and taken the bag.

The locket was in her bag and she intended to take it for repair after visiting the cemetery.

Jade, a customer service administrator at Nationwide building society, said she wanted to warn others to take care in the cemetery as she had seen other visitors leave their car doors and boots open.

She said: “Don’t go down there on your own and make sure you put your stuff in the boot and your car is locked. There were a lot of people who just left their boots open and their car doors wide open.”

The man was white, in his early 20s, and about 5ft 6ins. He wore a striped hooded top with the hood up, light blue jeans and white trainers.

Anyone with information is asked to call Wiltshire Police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.