Unholy theft toll on Shropshire's lovely churches

From organised gangs stealing metal from listed buildings, to opportunist thieves making away with cash, biscuits and wine, church leaders today pleaded with offenders to think about the damage and pain they cause to parishioners.

Police have released their entire list of Shropshire church crimes over the past five years as they urged caretakers of places of worship to make sure their buildings were secure.

Canon Jonathan Mitchell, of Shrewsbury Cathedral, today spoke of his "sadness" at parishioners being unable to leave the door unlocked. He said: "I do know in the past we have had some problems with handbags taken from volunteers and a couple of break-ins to try and take money from the donation boxes.

"Sadly we do not feel that we can keep the church open and unlocked without volunteer stewards."

There are hundreds of examples of crime in churches across the region.

Some of it may appear to be petty, but it costs thousands and brings inconvenience and upset to parishioners.

In one attack a donation box was ripped off the wall of Mary's Church in Clunton, near Clun, in September – for the sake of just £2. The raid was discovered by churchgoers ahead of their Sunday service.

Elsewhere, a huge £20,000 worth of lead was taken from the north aisle of the historic All Saints' Church in Claverley, near Bridgnorth.

The Rev Garry Ward said the impact on the church could be huge as the insurance would only pay out £5,000 – leaving a deficit of £15,000.

The 900-year-old St Andrew's Church at Shifnal had the lead stripped from its roof three times in two months back in 2007.

It has since invested in state-of-the-art SmartWater technology so that any future thieves will literally have the guilt written on their hands. The move has helped prevent further attacks.

Almost all churches now have some form of security. Some have alarms, others have set up an elaborate network of CCTV cameras. And communities are also helping each other to thwart the criminals, with volunteers twice catching culprits in the act at St Mary the Virgin Church in Alveley. A fall in the price of scrap metal has helped target the problem of thefts of lead from roofs.

Figures released by West Mercia Police today show that there were 53 attacks on churches in 2010/11, equating to at least one theft a week on average across Shropshire.

That figure dropped to 29 in 2013/14 – although there have already been 30 attacks so far in 2014/15.

Ecclesiastical Insurance (EI) said there were 659 claims nationally by churches in the first half of 2012, mainly for lead theft, dropping to 195 for the same period last year. It stressed that it had concerns over government funding for the police's National Metal Theft Taskforce which was due to finish.

EI said it limited its cover payouts in 2009 to £5,000 for the cost of the lead and £5,000 for damage, which it described as enough to cover average thefts of £2,000 to £3,000, but not extreme cases where churches were repeatedly targeted.