THIEVES ransacked a Bolton church's garden of remembrance...on the weekend the country paid its respects to its war dead. The crooks ripped apart the garden surrounding Deane Church stealing hundreds of pounds worth of valuable York stone slabs from its pathways.

Concrete paving was also smashed and thrown on to the garden's lawn.

Church vicar, the Rev Roger Jackson, slammed the thieves responsible.

He said: "On the weekend when we remembered with gratitude those who gave their lives during the war, and pay tribute to the giving work of organisations such as the Royal British Legion, we are shown the other side of the coin.

"These people, rather than give, simply grab and to hell with everyone else and their feelings.

"This is not the first time we have been targeted, but the damage on this occasion has not been done by kids. We have enough trouble with them pushing over grave stones.

"But this was premeditated. These were not drunken kids acting on the spur of the moment. Grown men have been responsible for this. They have known what they have been doing and planned it.

"That makes it far worse."

The damage was discovered on Saturday morning.

The Rev Jackson said: "They have caused quite a lot of damage -- but more than the cost, it is the distress it causes.

"The last time this happened a couple of years ago, our plight was featured in the BEN and a landscape gardener put it right for us free of charge.

"But now, I look at the garden and it is a case of here we go again."