Desperate appeal after beloved rabbit ‘stolen’ from school garden

Harry having a cuddle with one of the children Picture: LAXFIELD PRE-SCHOOL (Image: LAXFIELD PRE-SCHOOL)

Harry the rabbit is thought to have been taken from Laxfield Pre-School on Framlingham Road sometime between 4.30pm on Tuesday, June 26 and 8am on Wednesday, June 27.

Lizzie Church, manager at the pre-school, said Harry couldn’t have escaped from his hutch on his own.

“Someone has to undo it to get him out,” she said. “I don’t know if he has been taken by someone or children have let him out and messed around.”

She added: “It could be teenagers. We had trouble last year with some teenagers doing vandalism.”

Harry the rabbit is a big favourite among the pre-school children Picture: LAXFIELD PRE SCHOOL (Image: LAXFIELD PRE-SCHOOL)

Harry, who is roughly nine months old, is described by staff as being a wonderful school pet who loves being held and brushed by the children.

While all the parents and older pupils at nearby Laxfield Primary know that Harry is missing, the younger children have been told that he is away on holiday.

Ms Church said: “We didn’t want to worry the children. If we told them he has been taken it might worry them that it might happen to them.

“He normally goes on holiday with a member of our staff – we have just said he has gone on holiday earlier.”

She added that the older children have been out searching the fields for Harry, in the hope he might be found nearby.

Ms Church said that, if Harry was returned without a fuss, the school would take no further action.

“We just want to know what’s happened to him,” she said. “We just want to make sure there is no harm come to him. If he has been let go he won’t survive – he’s a pet, he’s not a wild animal.”

She added that the pre-school couldn’t understand why anybody would take him.

“He’s not valuable at all, he’s just a pre-school pet rabbit,” she said.

Due to being a charity, the pre-school doesn’t have much money to spare. However Ms Church said she now felt they had no choice but to invest in CCTV to protect the premises.

“We are a charity so we haven’t got the funds to waste on stuff we don’t need,” she said. “We are not here to make a profit – we are just here for the children.

“Because we have had a couple of problems now we are going to get CCTV.”

The pre-school is encouraging anybody with information about Harry’s whereabouts to contact either Ms Church on 01986 798091, or Suffolk police on 101, quoting reference number 37/35475/18.