A distraught Bromley woman has put out an appeal to thieves who stole her mother’s precious rings.

Amanda Newman, 55, of The Glen, Shortlands is going to get married this December, and wanted to wear the rings on the special day.

Her mother, Teresa Watkins, 74, will not be able to attend the ceremony because she has very bad Alzheimer’s. She needs one-to-one care after she climbed out of a first-floor window and fell onto gravel.

Ms Newman wanted to wear her mother’s rings on her big day, to feel that her mum was close.

But sometime between October 17 and October 19 thieves broke into the house of her stepdad and stole her mum’s rings.

They were not in their usual hiding place because Ms Newman had been trying them on for the wedding.

She said: “I was sitting at my desk at work. My stepdad texted me and said he said he’d been broken into. He said ‘your mum’s rings have gone.

“I just cried my eyes out on my desk. My sister couldn’t breathe when I told her. Then I got sent home because I was so upset.”

Ms Newman is trying to contact the thieves to get the rings back and is offering a £2,000 reward for their return.

She said: “If I could speak to the thieves I would say just, please give them back.

“They were my mum’s rings. She was partly deaf, and she would gesticulate with her hands and so the rings have been waved in front of us for ever.

“They embody my mother, we just want them back, we don’t care about the money.

“You swap and change necklaces, but we just wanted to have the rings. I wanted to have my mother with me at my wedding and having the ring on would have been the next best thing.”

The family has been putting out flyers and visiting jewellers across the city in the hope they will find the rings, which aren’t that valuable because they are made from semi-precious stones.

Ms Newman said: “I would be ecstatic and so relieved if we got them back. The dementia has been an affront and an assault on my mum.

“It shouldn’t be called dementia it should be called devastation and catastrophe. Dementia is not a strong enough word; her dignity has been taken away from her.

“Now her rings have been stolen and It feels like she’s being kicked when she is down.”

Anybody who has information that might help with the investigation should call the police on 101 and quote crime reference number: CAD 4694 18 October.