A GRATEFUL gardener has thanked police and his local newspaper after their combined efforts saw him reunited with stolen equipment.

Peter Hill was just one of many victims in a recent spate of thefts from sheds and cars in Chard and the surrounding area.

He woke up one day to discover two petrol cannisters were missing from his garage, but remained unaware the fuel wasn’t the only thing which had been pilfered.

That was, until a recent swoop from Chard police saw more than 100 items seized.

Pictures of the haul featured in the News, of which Peter is an avid reader, and it was then he realised his expensive, two-handed strimmer had also been taken.

Peter said: “I had two petrol cans in the shed. I put them back in there on one Monday, and the following Monday they weren’t there.

“I told police, then when the News came out on Wednesday I picked it up and straight away thought ‘my strimmer is very similar to that’.

“When I saw the picture in the paper I went to check and I was surprised to see mine was missing.

“They missed a lot of tools to get the strimmer, so they were obviously targeting high value agricultural machinery.”

Fortunately, Peter had kept the machine’s operating manual, with a unique serial number. PCSOs were able to reunite Peter with his missing machine.

He added: “I am very grateful to the police for recovering my strimmer, which is quite valuable, and my message would be other people should check that they haven’t lost small items, and always to lock your sheds.”

Mr Hill added all people should report thefts to police, no matter how small.

“You never know if it is part of a pattern or a local group of thefts,” he said.

The items were seized by police after two separate arrests. In the first occasion, two men were arrested on March 20 after driving a car suspected to be stolen.

A search of two addresses led to the recovery of suspected stolen garden tools.

Both men were released under investigation.

In a second, separate, incident, a man in his 30s was arrested on March 25 and police seized equipment such as chainsaws and strimmers, which were suspected to have been stolen.

The man was also released under investigation pending further enquiries.