THE holiday hopes of a couple and their disabled daughter have been wrecked by cruel thieves.

They took the family's new caravan from the driveway of their Bradley home, heaping trauma on what has been a terrible time for them.

Ron Jagger, 63, his wife, Pat, 57, and their 28-year-old daughter, Andrea, who has been brain- damaged from birth, were looking forward to spending time in the caravan on the east coast.

Pat is still recovering after she nearly died in hospital at the end of last year.

She was admitted to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary last October after an asthma attack.

But she then contracted the hospital superbug MRSA which led to blood poisoning and severe kidney problems.

Ron said: "Pat was in a coma for five weeks and at one point doctors told me she was going to die."

But battling Pat pulled through and came out of hospital in January.

She is still recovering slowly.

The family bought the cream-coloured Bailey Senator California caravan last Tuesday and planned to go on many short breaks in it.

Ron said: "If we found a caravan site we really liked, we would have probably left it there a lot of the time."

But their dreams were wrecked at 3.30pm on Saturday.

The family had gone to do last bits of holiday shopping before setting off at teatime when they returned home to find the caravan gone from the drive.

Ron said: "Neighbours had seen the caravan being taken, but thought we had organised for someone to take it away to have some work done on it."

Ron thinks they dragged the caravan up Bradley Road using chains hooked up to a white flat-back pick-up before stopping and cutting the hitchlock off.

"We are absolutely devastated," said Ron. "The caravan would have been the start of a new life for us."

The twin-axled caravan has Bailey written in small raised letters on the front and back and California and Millennium both down the sides.

Pc Dave McSweeney, of Huddersfield police, said: "It would have been busy on Bradley Road at the time and many people probably saw this caravan being towed away."

Contact Pc Kimmo Moylan or Pc Julian Nelson on 01484 436659.