A mum is devastated after her homemade Coca-Cola truck was stolen from her Christmas lights display.

Gillingham resident Zoe Murphy set up the illuminations at her mum's house on November 27 after collecting and swapping decorations with people from around the world for almost three years.

She ended up spending almost £1,000 building the Coca-Cola truck, which is completely handmade, in the hope of winning the title of the UK's biggest Christmas lights display.

However, at around 7.45pm yesterday the front part of the truck was taken.

The 40-year-old said: "It was my mum's birthday yesterday and we literally popped out to treat her to dinner, we were only gone for about two hours and it happened then.

"We've got them on camera, two cars went up and down the road and they stopped outside a neighbour's house – two of them got out, opened the back of their van and went up to the Coca-Cola truck and tried shaking it."

Zoe said that because the truck is made of thick wood it is very heavy.

Once they realised they wouldn't be able to take it, they kicked it to the side and ripped the cab out from underneath it, which is her three-year-old son's toy.

Zoe is raising money for childhood cancer charity My Shining Star, which is based in Rainham, and has a postbox where people can donate outside the house as well as a JustGiving page.

"We reached £500 yesterday in the charity pot and we were sitting there celebrating," she said.

"I was buzzing because that's a lot more than we raised last year by this point, its only been nine days, but then we came home and my mum just burst out crying.

"When we put the truck out there we sat my son down and told him we were raising money for poorly children, we explained to him what we were doing and he understood and even told everyone at school that his toys were in the display so all the kids could come and have a look."

After the police were called, she put a post on a local group asking people for security footage and found out that other people had had things stolen from their gardens.

She said: "You just don't expect it. Last night I was in shock and I was still awake at 3am because I was so angry.

"You just start to think to yourself why do we go out of our way to plan it all year? My mum spends hours out there chatting to everyone looking at the displays."

When it's particularly busy, they even put the snow machine on for people to enjoy.

"It all comes out of our own pocket to cheer everyone up and everyone loves it and you just think why do I bother," she said.

"But then you remember that you're trying to do it for a good cause but it's just disheartening.

"We're not going to let it stop us but it's just sad, we're trying to give to people who are not so lucky in life and people do that it's just horrible.

"All that money we've put into make everything and make it nice to raise money for kids, people are just so heartless."