Piece of River Stolen

A short section of the River Nene in Cambridgeshire was reported stolen yesterday morning. A fifteen yard section of the river at Walpole Marsh between Wisbech and Sutton Bridge has simply vanished.

The report to Wisbech Police Station was made by dog walker Mary Aucontrary, 57, who was out at 6am to give her dalmation some early exercise along the waterside. "I was walking along the river as I do every morning, when we suddenly came across a section where there was no water. The river remains either side of the stolen part."

Sceptics wondered if it was a late April Fools joke and were surprised that the missing section could be surrounded by two walls of water. But scientists explained that some rivers have very high surface tension which could stop the remaining water simply filling in the missing section. Environmentalists are worried though that without the missing part, upstream water will simply back up and cause flooding. Rivers Agency spokesman Dee Tyne-Tees said there was concern that if the thieves are not caught quickly and punished severely this could lead to a crime wave with other parts of rivers being taken.

Wisbech Police's PC Ron Cuprum said that they were confident that they would catch the robbers. "They obviously had to carry the piece of river on a large flat bed lorry and will have needed to hide it for a while and it shouldn't be a difficult job finding fifteen yards of river, wherever the robbers choose to bury it."

But crime experts say that it will be surprisingly easy to launder and will probably find its way into the hands of a foreign buyer, probably from the Middle East. It is very likely to be broken up and sold off in small pieces - possibly in plastic bottles. They say that this is not unique and pieces of other rivers have been stolen in the past. After the 1968 Great Tamar heist, very little of it was ever recovered and in all probability most of the stolen water is still underground, possibly in the hands of private collectors.