A mum-of-two has spoken of her heartbreak at the loss of dozens of items of jewellery after her home was burgled last Friday (October 30).

Michelle Bassett, 38, of Victoria Road in South Woodford, went out at 2:30pm and returned home with her husband Matt, 40, at around 7pm to find it been broken into and tens of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery had been stolen.

Among the stolen items was an antique diamond ring which had been valued at £30,000-£40,000, a chunky gold men's identity bracelet with a unique clasp mechanism and custom-made charm bracelets belonging to her children. The entire collection had been built up over nearly 60 years.

She said: “The ring was made for my grandmother. I don't care about how much I could sell it for, it's the sentimental value. I now have nothing to leave my children. Our lives have been ripped apart.

“It's so distressing. I've had to send my children away to stay with relatives, because they can't touch anything in the house while police do their forensics.

“The idea was to wait until the time was right to pass some of these pieces on to my children. But now the time is never going to be right.”

Other stolen items included designer pieces by Gucci, Juicy, Links of London and Dior. Mrs Bassett said she was willing to offer a reward for the return of any of the items.

She was also critical of how the police were handling the crime. She said: “The police have been very, very unhelpful. They came round and spent all of 10 minutes here.

“They said someone would be round to take fingerprints that day, but they didn't come round until Sunday, and they didn't even make a request for someone to come and do it at the time.

“They go on about not having enough resources. There are people out there getting murdered and they can't get to them in time, but they can get round to a party at 10.30 at night if they're making too much noise, like they did when I had an 18th party for my daughter. I mean, where are their priorities?”