A PRE-SCHOOL in Poole was left without vital supplies for its children after becoming the second victim of milk theft.

Beverley Law, who owns Little Fish Pre-school in Parkstone, called the Daily Echo to say some 24 pints of milk had been taken from right outside the premises on not one, but two occasions this week.

The first delivery on Monday was missing when staff turned up to open the pre-school, at Sunnyhill Community Church in Sunnyhill Road, at 8.45am, and a second crate of another 24 pints delivered yesterday was also taken.

A similar theft took place at nearby Sylvan First School, in Livingstone Road, Parkstone, on Friday June 15, when thieves smashed their way into a locked store to take the bottles and cartons.

Beverley said staff at the pre-school, which has been on the same site for the last 20 years and currently has 39 young attendees, aged between two and four, were stunned at the crime.

She added: “We’ve had to go out and buy the milk again, but we just haven’t got the money to keep doing that and we’ve got children here that really need this milk for nutrition.

“We have now found out the milk is delivered at 2am and we get here at 7.45am to open up. But this is a nice, quiet road and the milk is not even in sight from the road. It’s in a crate as single pints and the whole thing is gone.

“Someone must either have known it was there or they’re following the milkman round.”

Ironically, the pre-school used to have milk delivered independently, before claiming the money back from the government, which offers free milk for under fives, but Beverley changed the arrangement recently as she thought it would be more convenient.

She has now changed the delivery time to between 8am and 9am to avoid any further thefts.

She added: “The police have been round, but they can’t really do anything. We want to forewarn other pre-schools to watch out.”