In the early hours of Thursday morning, 31st October 2019, thieves stripped the lead from the nave roof of St Bartholomew’s church, Covenham.

Neighbours were woken in the night as the thieves hauled the metal from the roof, they contacted the police and some time later they attended the scene. Unfortunately, they didn’t notice the roof was missing, that was reported some time later.

Eventually they were caught, a team of three Romanians ended up in court and pleaded guilty and a fourth followed. They were responsible for many thefts around the country but Lincolnshire was the hardest hit. Apparently one of them was an Amazon delivery driver during the day and the van was used to take the stolen lead back to Birmingham after removal.

They were caught, in part, as one of them dropped a mobile phone on Birketts Lane which was handed into the police by a dogwalker. 

Michael Cranmer-Brown, prosecuting, said the Crown would no longer pursue a charge of converting criminal property against the three men as it would not be in the public interest given their guilty pleas to offences relating to the majority of churches which suffered thefts.

We did approach Amazon for an explanation of how one of their delivery vans could be used in such a manner but never received a reply to that question.

The roof will cost tens of thousands to replace and we are currently on our third temporary roof as we pursue sufficient funding to repair this fantastic building.