THE ONLY living relative of an Otley teenager who died tragically 60 years ago has made a heartfelt appeal to his grave robbers.

Owen Snowball, the only son of Cathy and George, drowned in an accident at Otley Swimming Pool in 1943.

His devastated parents used what money they had to put up a sundial on his grave at Otley Cemetery, as a sign of hope to remember him by.

But now callous thieves have snatched the stone monument, leaving Owen's cousin, Nanette Weeks of Killinghall, near Harrogate, deeply shocked.

Mrs Weeks said: "It just seems so sad to me that we've got to the stage where somebody's so desperate for a few quid that they'd do something like this.

"It's such a shame because when his parents put it up it would have cost them a lot of money and they would have thought it would be a lasting memorial to their only son.

"My grandparents' graves are close by Owen's. Both his parents are dead now and I'm really the only one whose left, and I keep an eye on the cemetery.

"I think it's been taken quite recently because no weeds have grown yet on the soil where it stood - they must have prised it up with a pickaxe or a crowbar and used a vehicle to take it away."

After first noticing the monument had gone Mrs Weeks contacted Leeds City Council's Cemeteries department to make sure it hadn't been removed for any legitimate reason. Then she went to Otley Police, who told her the sundial had probably been sold on by now and that she had little chance of recovering it.

But Mrs Weeks says she owes it to her cousin's memory to at least try - and hopes the unusual subscription on the stone ("I tell of sunny hours") may arouse someone's suspicion.

"If this sundial is now sitting proudly in the garden of someone who knows it was stolen from a grave then I pity them," she said. "But maybe somebody's bought it unwittingly, and I'd like to be an optimist.

"I'd like to think that anyone out there who might realise what they've either bought, from a car boot sale or through an advert, or stolen, would have the decency to give it back.

"The sundial and the inscription were chosen for Owen because he was only a young lad, and full of life, and his parents wanted something bright to remember him by."

l Anyone with information can contact Otley Police, quoting crime reference number AA/03/31812, or get in touch with Mrs Weeks via the Wharfedale Observer.