A mum has been left stunned after waking up to discover that her driveway gates had been stolen overnight.
Sophie Alexander, 23, noticed her two metal gates outside her home had completely disappeared when she opened her door in Droylsden, Gtr Manchester on Sunday, April 17.
Determined to find an explanation, the puzzled mum asked her neighbours for any CCTV footage - and discovered that a red car had pulled up in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The footage freezes before the driver opens the boot and drives away, but Sophie believes the man ripped off her gate before stashing it in the car and making off, Manchester Evening News reports.
She said: "Honestly I couldn't believe it. I was in my house and my partner came round, and we went outside and I noticed my gate just wasn't there anymore.
"I said 'where the hell has my gate gone?' and at first thought it was a wind up. I went across the road to my neighbour and couldn't believe what I saw.
"There was a man who drives up to the front of my house, reverses, opens his boot and drives off. It is just so weird."
The mum of two has lived in the house for two years, which is conveniently next door to her own mum's property.
But the incident has now left her worried about living there with her two young children, and is still considering whether to report the theft to police.
The incident happened at around 12.45am on Sunday morning.
She said: "Nothing like this has ever happened, it's completely out of the blue and it was just taken for no reason. It is just an old metal gate and won't be worth anything.
"When you look at the post you can see the gates have been ragged out with the bolts on it so the person can probably use it again.
"It is just stupid and no reason at all why this has happened."
Sophie said that the metal gate had been 'ragged' out of the posts with its bolts still attached.
She noted: "There are hundreds of other gates on my street and other houses. I don't know why this random man thought to just drive up to my house and steal my gate."
