Real life Wakefield cat burglar found stealing cuddly toys - and her owners need your help to return them home

Four-year-old Bella the cat brought home her first toy, a small stuffed dog figurine, on Sunday.

In the days since, the toys have continued to appear, and owner Michelle Blacker now has a collection of six of the miniature animals.

She said: “On Sunday I noticed one in the garden, but thought a kid might have chucked it. That night I went into the bedroom at 10 o'clock and I usually stick my head out the window to see if the cats will come in.

“About 11 o’clock I looked out and there was another one on the doorstep.

“At one o’clock in the morning I looked out again and she was sitting on the doorstep with another one.

“It's madness! She was crying on the windowsill this morning at five o’clock and she’d got another one. So now we’re up to six, all of the same collection.”

Michelle is determined to reunite the toys with their owner, but multiple Facebook appeals have not been successful.

She believes that Bella must be stealing the toys from a house or shed, as they are clean and dry when she brings them home.

And she says Bella has never been out for more than a few hours at a time, so believes the owner must live close to her home on Watson Crescent.

She said: “People ask why I don’t follow her, but I can’t go under fences and over hedges - that would lead to a whole different kind of Facebook post if people saw that.

“I thought about getting her a tracker collar, but then she’d do something completely different or just sit in the garden sulking.

“I’m surprised nobody’s gone ‘Actually, I’m missing six teddies.’

“My first text was to next door, to see if they were theirs. But they didn’t know anything about them.”

Bella has lived on the Eastmoor estate with twin sister Jasmine for four years, and Michelle says she has never been known to steal anything before.

She now wants to make contact with the owner of the toys before they notice they are missing, and return them to their rightful home.

She said: “At one point I was thinking, do I ring the police? I’ve got a shelf full of stolen goods! But can you imagine that phone call?

“If my kid was going into a toy shop and taking a toy at a time without paying for it I’d have to report them.

“They’re all the same, they’re kids’ toys. Some poor kid’s going to get their collection from the shed and there’s six missing.

“She knows exactly what she’s doing. But once they’re in the house she’s not interested.

“Her twin sister just brings me dead mice home, so I don’t know which I prefer.”

Email [email protected] if you recognise any of the stolen items in Bella's collection.