A BLACKBURN school is appealing for financial help after its CCTV cameras were stolen.

Thieves struck at Audley Infant School in Queens Park Road twice over the summer holidays and then again just weeks after the children returned to school – leaving it with a £5,000 bill to replace the equipment.

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Headteacher Helen Nelson said: “I have absolutely no clue why anybody would want to do this.

“We were just trying to sort out the theft from over the holiday and then we were targeted again.”

The head teacher added that the bill to replace the cameras will come out of the school budget and the payment will impact on funds available for pupils.

The school has sent out letters to neighbours in the area asking for financial help in order to minimise the impact on the pupils.

Mrs Nelson, who has been at the school for two years, said: “Every school draws up a budget every year and if they have to ever spend money on something that they have not planned for means that money is taken away from other areas.

“What these people have done will impact on other things that we had planned to do in school this year.

“I have sent letters to neighbours in the hope that they will support us in paying for these new camera.

“Because the ones that we had were quite old we can’t replace them like-for-like.

“Also I’m worried we might just be replacing them for them to only be stolen again because extra security around them costs even more money we did not plan to spend.

“I hope that we are are to pull on some heart strings and encourage people to support us and the children we teach.”

Lancashire Police are investigating.

A spokesman said: “We are appealing for information after the theft of a CCTV camera from Audley Infant School in Queens Park Road, Blackburn.

“The camera was removed from a post overlooking the school car park between 3am and 4am on September 22.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the police on the non-emergency 101 number, quoting log number 0242 of September 22.