A FARMING family whose young children set up their own business selling free range eggs are ‘stunned’ after the farm was broken into and the money they had raised was stolen.

Josh, eight, and Amelia Liddle, five, had been rearing their own chickens and selling their eggs to visitors of the family farm, with an ‘honesty box’ visitors could leave money in, to raise money for their school.

However, a break-in last Friday night saw the honesty box smashed to pieces and the money stolen.

“I’m stunned really,” said the pair’s mum Louise Goss, 34. “It’s obvious when you see it that it’s a child’s money box. It’s just nasty.

“Everybody knows us, and everybody knows what they were doing. We were on with our next fund-raising activity after the first one went so well.”

Josh and Amelia had planned to use the money to buy their school, Thurgoland CE Primary, new gardening equipment, after previously raising money selling their eggs to buy the school new musical instruments.

Louise, who lives on the 12-acre Office Fold Farm in Wortley with husband Ian and the children, said: “It’s not a large amount of money but they were saving up for the school.

“They were trying to do something positive and have worked really hard for this to happen.”

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The family were alerted by a similar break-in on the same night at the nearby K Stuart and Sons farm, which also runs a 24-hour honesty box system for customers who travel from Sheffield and Barnsley to buy milk and eggs.

Dave Stuart, 60, who grew up on the farm, said the robbery at Office Fold Farm was ‘not on’ and has shared CCTV footage on Facebook showing the apparent crime at his farm, which has since been shared more than 100 times.

“There is a sign up saying CCTV is in operation and you can see him stood reading the sign before he went back in,” Dave said.

“He must have thought the prize outweighed the risks.”

Dave said the honesty box scheme has been ‘absolutely brilliant’ in the five years since it was implemented, and the theft would not stop the farm from selling produce in this way.

He said: “There are people who use it 24 hours a day, who know there are cameras up. Some people even hold their money up so we know they’re paying. It’s been absolutely brilliant, everybody loves it.

“They all hope we’re not going to give up with it and we are not going to give up.”

Louise said she has since been contacted by the Penistone Round Table who want to donate £150 to the school, and to replace Josh and Amelia’s broken money box.