A HEARTBROKEN Barmouth nursery owner has spoken out after callous thieves made off with well over £1,000 in donations and equipment.

On Wednesday evening criminals smashed their way in through the Oasis Day Nursery’s back door and then proceeded to ransack the property.

Amongst the items stolen was a charity box for cancer care charity Macmillan.

The distraught nursey owner, Rev Dawn Robinson said: “They’ve taken our two iPads, our safe which included all of our fund-raising money as well as the money from our money tin, our staff pot and even the Macmillan charity box - they just ripped the cardboard box open and helped themselves.

“The money stolen totalled well over a £1,000, we had £1,200 in the fund-raising safe alone.

“It’s disgusting, we’re a not-for-profit business and we just manage to survive as it is. This is a real blow.

“All the money stolen was going to be reinvested for the children, we were hoping to open up a new outside play area for them and buy new toys, I don’t know what will happen now.

“It’s just really sad, we work so hard and then something like this happens.

“How anyone can do this to a children’s nursery is beyond belief.”

The nursery, which has 75 children registered with them at the moment, is very much at the heart of the Barmouth community.

Within hours of nursery’s break in, a fund-raising page had been set up to help the education facility through these tough times.

Confirming the incident, a spokesperson for North Wales Police said: "We received a report this morning at 9.10am of an incident at Oasis Nursery, Park Road, Barmouth.

"A break in occurred between 5.45pm last night and 8am this morning.

"A window has been smashed and property has been stolen.

"Anyone who witnessed anything suspicious last night is encouraged to call 101 quoting reference U144503."

To donate money towards Oasis Day Nursery, visit www.gofundme.com/2qgmht8