Community Rallies Around Farm After Thieves Steal Animals From Sanctuary Built for Kids With Needs
“I’m just absolutely heartbroken. It’s the fact that my animals are my pets, and I’ve had them all since I was young."
When Julia Stewart walked out to feed her animals on the morning of April 6, she found an empty field where her beloved sheep and turkeys should have been. The mother who built a therapy farm for children with additional needs—including her own son—was left devastated after thieves stole 12 animals overnight from her small sanctuary near Scunthorpe, England.
It was the second blow to hit the farm in just two weeks, and now, they family who owns the property is searching for answers.
Therapy farm owner made a heartbreaking discovery on property
Stewart runs Farmyard Friends C.I.C. near Messingham near Scunthorpe, 180 miles north of London, alongside her mother, Mary, and her sister, Nicola. The small sanctuary provides animal therapy, community interest visits and educational farm services focusing on therapeutic interactions with animals. The family cares for each animal like a member of the household, and every one of the 12 stolen animals had a name.
“Last night I had 8 sheep and 4 turkeys stolen from Farmyard Friends C.I.C . All my sheep have names and are friendly. I am beyond devastated and heartbroken,” Stewart wrote in a statement via Facebook. “This past week has been horrendous and this has broken me. The thought of my animals been scared and hurt makes me feel physically sick.”
Stewart shared every name: “They all had names – my turkeys are Albert and Bernie, and the two girls were Hip and Hop, because they walk funny. And my sheep were Milkshake, Juniper, Daisy, Dixie, Fleur, Betty, Sooty and Teddy.”
Julia Stewart made a plea to the public to help find the animals
One sheep held especially deep personal significance for Stewart. She had raised Teddy from the time he was just two weeks old, bottle-feeding him and letting him sleep on her bed until he was old enough to join the other animals at the farm. That kind of bond doesn’t disappear overnight, and the thought of losing him and the others was almost too much to bear.
“I’m just absolutely heartbroken. It’s the fact that my animals are my pets, and I’ve had them all since I was young. They just come up to you, like dogs do, wanting cuddles,” she said. “The fact that somebody’s taken them, and I know what’s going to happen to them is just destroying me. It really is. I feel absolutely broken by the fact somebody’s going to hurt them.”
Nicola detailed how the thieves carried out the crime: “They have cut through a gate, driven across a farmer’s field and backed up to our hedgeline and made a track through the hedge to take eight of our pet sheep, one of which, Teddy, Julia hand-reared from two weeks old. He used to sleep on the bed, so she is absolutely heartbroken.”
Nicola added that three of the four stolen turkeys were rescue animals. “They’ve also taken four turkeys that were sat on eggs. The sad thing about that is three of them were rescue turkeys with deformed feet. They were in a terrible condition when we got them but had really come into their own, and now they’ve been taken. These animals are pets. They have names.”
Julia Stewart’s therapy farm was built for son Ethan’s needs
Farmyard Friends, which is in the process of gaining its animal welfare license, began as a place of comfort and therapy for Stewart’s eldest son, Ethan, who is on the autism spectrum and is home-schooled. Julia holds a Masters in autism and has spent years working with children with special educational needs. The farm grew from one family’s need into a resource for the wider community.
Nicola explained: “Ethan is the reason it was set up. Julia has a Masters in autism and has worked with special educational needs children and there was nowhere for them to go.”
The family had to find a gentle way to explain the theft to Ethan. “We’ve had to tell him that the people who have taken them have stolen them because they’re their best sheep in the world, and the best turkeys in the world, and they’ve taken them to set up their own farm. But we know that they’re probably no longer with us and they’ve been used for human consumption,” Nicola said.
How the community is showing support for Farmyard Friends
The theft came at the worst possible time for the family behind Farmyard Friends. Stewart had already been dealing with serious damage from a storm that struck two weeks earlier, and just as the family was working to rebuild, the overnight raid dealt another crushing blow.
Stewart told the BBC that the storm “wiped out some of our shelters.” She added, “We were trying to rebuild everything and now this. It’s just hit us really massively.”
A GoFundMe was started by a friend named Stephanie to help the farm purchase security cameras recommended by police. A Humberside Police spokesperson said officers from their Rural Task Force received a report of the theft and asked anyone with information or CCTV footage to come forward.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
