Jean Dormedy wept and shook as she spoke of her 16-year ordeal at the hands of yobs who persistently vandalise and steal hanging baskets planted in memory of her parents.

Mrs Dormedy, 74, disabled with osteoporosis, asthma, emphysema, and arthritis, said she could “not take it any more” after the latest in a series of thefts from her home near Davie Close, Sheerness.

She said during the past two decades she has found the baskets, which she keeps in memory of her parents Annie and Norman Burton missing, or with the flowers torn out and scattered over her garden.

On one occasion the vandals’ handiwork involved lining the flowers up along her fence during the night for her to find the next morning.

The mother-of-one said: “I don’t know why they keep targeting me. I have never hurt anyone, or stolen anything in my life. It is making me so unhappy and sometimes all I can do is cry.

“Why are they trying to hurt me so much. These baskets are in memory of my parents, and they are precious to me. It is heartbreaking when I come and I find they have been taken or the compost thrown out and the flowers strewn over my garden.”

Mrs Dormedy, who was widowed in 1985, said she woke up on Friday, August 15, once again to find the baskets had been stolen from their hangers by her front door.

She said although her brother bought two new ones she could not afford to re-plant them with flowers.

She said: “I am even upset to tell you about it. I don’t know why I am being treated like this, I feel like I am being victimised. I only have a few years left and just want to enjoy what I have. I just cannot understand why these people would want to hurt an old lady so much.”

Police advise is to secure hanging baskets or use lockable ones, and to security mark valuable property.

Anyone with information should contact police on 01795 419305 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.