***ALREADY ON WEB***

At the South Coast Rabbit Rescue Family Fun Day in Havant Park on Saturday, an iPhone was taken from one of the volunteer face painters, and £140 was taken from a volunteer from Brent Lodge.

Vanessa Taylor, from South Coast Rabbit Rescue, told of her sadness at the fundraiser ending with such unfortunate events.

She said: ‘We had a volunteer doing some face painting for us and the phone was taken while she was doing it.

‘It was an iPhone and a fairly new one at that so was obviously very disheartening.

‘But then we heard from the Brent Lodge volunteer that their takings of £140 had also been taken. It’s heartbreaking that the event ended on such a sad note for everyone – Brent Lodge is one of the best wildlife centres around and I was so upset for them.

‘I couldn’t sleep after it happened – I just kept on thinking about how sad it was.

‘It’s an awful thing to happen, especially at a charity event, and hopefully this won’t happen again in the future.’

But South Coast Rabbit Rescue refused to give up, and has raised £200 for Brent Lodge through an appeal yesterday.

Vanessa said: ‘We’ve managed to raise a bit more than what Brent Lodge had made on the day, – so at least we managed to recover what they had lost.’