OPPORTUNIST thieves have left a boy in tears after stealing his miniature motorbike.
Paul Gore, 9, of Alvington, had only used the £975 bike twice since it was given to him as a Christmas present, said his mother Jill.
Now she is offering a reward to anyone who helps to recover the machine.
"I just could not believe it – I thought it was a practical joke at first," she said.
"There are not many places he can ride it and a friend had taken him to Woolaston on Saturday carrying the bike in his van."
They then returned to Paul's home which is just behind the Blacksmith's Arms on the main A48 road through the village.
"They had not been back for long and we had just washed the mud off it. It was parked by the house behind my Land Rover waiting to dry and be put away," said Mrs Gore.
"Somebody must have seen it and wheeled it over the pub yard and into a van or something.
"It must have been quite hard to do it because the children were all paying out in the front – I won't let them go into the fields because of the foot and mouth."
She said they reckoned the theft took place between 3pm and 3.30pm and in spite of there being people in the pub nobody apparently saw a thing.
The theft had made Paul very sad and he spent the rest of the weekend in tears.
"Unhappily, it isn't covered by insurance either," she said. She appealed to anyone who saw anything suspicious or who knows where the bike might be to contact police.