Heartless thieves steal giant poppies from Broad Street

Nov 11 2010 by Mark Cowan, Birmingham Mail

SHAMELESS thieves threatened to tarnish Birmingham’s Remembrance Day by stealing giant poppies from a memorial parade route.

Up to 50 of the big poppies have been swiped from lampposts lining Broad Street.

The brazen crooks were even seen selling them on to unsuspecting members of the public just yards from where the plastic memorial emblem had been taken.

As the city falls silent today in memory of those killed in conflicts around the world, police launched a hunt for three suspects.

War veterans blasted the thieves for trashing the memory of Britain’s war heroes. D-Day veteran Geoff Russon, 87, said: “This is disgusting.

“The poppies have been put up in memory of the men who died for this country – but the people who did this don’t even have any respect for the dead.

“They should be made to go to the graves in cemeteries in France and Belgium. Those headstones and not just stones, they are a man’s life that was cut short.”