A GRANDMOTHER has slammed thieves who stole family Christmas presents from her car boot as “scum.”

Sue Riddoch, 65, from Caldicot was parked outside the Argos store in Newport’s Maesglas retail park when she came back to find gifts she had just bought for her grand-children missing from her Fiat 500 car.

The pensioner said: “I couldn’t believe it when I opened the boot... I even doubted I’d been shopping, but the thieves had left the dog food I’d bought, so I wasn’t imagining it.

“I was so upset, I just kept looking at the boot and crying. I thought why have they done this... I’ve had to save for this, why can’t they do the same instead of stealing from a pensioner? It cost me nearly £200.”

Sue, who has four children and 13 grandchildren, had bought toiletry gift sets and toys from TK Maxx and Smyths Toys on Tuesday morning, December 12, before driving a few yards to the Argos car park.

But when she came back to the car after spending 20 minutes in the store she opened the boot to find her shopping bags gone.

“I’ve no idea how they got in. The car was locked and the boot doesn’t have a key lock and there’s no sign of any damage,” she added.

“My first thought was that they are nothing more than scum. Later I thought they must be desperate to do something as low as this. My mind keeps switching between being fuming mad and almost feeling sorry for them.”

Sue said the police told her they couldn’t do anything because they had no evidence of a crime, as the receipts were in the stolen shopping bags and there was no sign of forced entry to the boot.

But the pensioner said: “They definitely could have done more. I phoned them and they said there was nothing they could do, as the receipts had gone and I had no proof of purchase. My insurers said the same, but the sales are on my bank statement, so I’m going back to the police.

“Sadly there’s no CCTV, because I went straight back to Argos and asked them if they had footage, but they said only for the front of the shop.

“Myself and my husband Brian are both pensioners and we’ve had to save for this. It felt horrible thinking the thieves might have been watching me going in and out of the shops and that someone’s been in my car.

“Now, we can’t stop checking that the car’s locked. I can’t explain what happened, such as a shopping bag handle got caught when I closed the boot, because I definitely locked the car. The boot was closed when I came back.

“It feels worse that they stole Christmas presents, gifts for the family. It definitely put a damper on Christmas, I didn’t want to know for several days afterwards, and my husband even took to calling me ‘Bah, humbug’.

“But I went to see my grandchild’s nativity yesterday and it was lovely, and I’m slowly getting back in the mood. It will be great when I get all the youngsters around me.”