HEARTLESS sneak-thieves who robbed a Coppenhall lady's handbag have stolen a dream holiday from her six distraught children.

Virginia Cooper was due to fly to Tenerife with her family last Wednesday, but cruel opportunists struck at her Elm Drive home the night before, leaving her without flight tickets, passports or travellers cheques.

Mrs Cooper said she had taken a year to save enough to go on the two-week holiday, and the whole family had been looking forward to it.

"It was unbelieveable. If you had seen the children's faces. It's them I feel sorry for," she said.

"It has taken such a long time to save for it and the kids were getting really excited but then, in a couple of hours, it was taken away from them. We have had to send them back to school."

But Mrs Cooper said the thieves, who broke into the house through the living room window, had ignored packed suitcases to snatch the bag.

"There is nothing else damaged, they just snatched the handbag and went," she said

"The cases were all lined up but not one of them was disturbed. It must have been just an opportunist theft, but it would have been nice if they had handed in the tickets and passports."

She said despite their disappointment the family hadn't given up hope of getting a holiday.

"The holiday company tried to get us on another flight but we couldn't get our new passports in time," she said.

"We are trying to get another in a couple of weeks, they have been very helpful."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.