THE LATEST victim of car theft in the area has spoken of her shock and frustration at the crime.

Michelle Flack woke up on Tuesday June 1 to find her Toyota Verso had been stolen from her home in Colvin Gardens in the early hours of the morning.

Thieves broke in her home, where she lives with husband and their two young children, and took an iPod, a digital camera, and £150 in cash, along with a set of car keys.

Mrs Flack, 35, said: “It must have happened between 12am and 7am as we were upstairs. It's pretty scary because my children were in bed at the time.

“I can talk about it now but I was pretty tearful for a few days after it happened.

“It's so frustrating not having the car because it's something you just take for granted. You expect thieves to want an expensive car, I would never have thought they would have been interested in mine.

“My children go to Our Lady of Lourdes School, which we can walk to, but we do drive if we're in a rush sometimes.

“It's funny because I usually take my bag upstairs with my car keys, but for some reason I didn't that night. I'd say to people take everything upstairs and don't leave car keys or anything lying around.

“The police were absolutely brilliant. They were with us within an hour, followed by the forensic detectives an hour and a half later. I also had a visit from the Police Victim Focus Unit on Wednesday morning who were very supportive.

“They couldn't tell me exactly where they'd been but they said they had just come from a house around the corner where they had two cars stolen.”

The crime comes just weeks after two other high-profile incidents in the borough.

On Friday May 7, a 75-year-old man was tricked into getting out over his Range Rover when thieves pushed a recycling bin in front of her car in Penhurst Road in Ilford.

That came just two days after an attempted carjacking in Northumberland Avenue in Aldersbrook on Wednesday May 5, in which the driver was threatened with a gun before he managed to reverse away from the thieves and escape with his vehicle, but crashed in the process.