Cows on the run after tractor theft

Forty cows and a bull ran amok through the streets of Bloxwich when a stolen tractor crashed through a farm's fence.

The herd was set free from Poplar Farm in Fishley Lane just before midnight, and followed the tractor as it sped away.

They trampled through fields alongside the Wyrley and Essington Canal, through a gate onto residential Grenfell Road, the home of Little Bloxwich CE School, onto the busy Lichfield Road, before roaming down Field Road.

See more pictures by clicking on the images on the right.

Eventually they stopped in cul-de-sac Lancaster Place, where families woke up to the sound of mooing.

A garden wall was knocked down, car side mirrors damaged and plants eaten during the drama.

Police managed to round up the animals at around 2.30am before Graham Sadler, who runs the farm, was contacted to bring them home. He and six friends herded them back up Selmans Hill towards the farm.

The tractor was stolen from a unit from a neighbouring field and was driven through hedges and at least four fences which will cost thousands of pounds to replace.

It was later found abandoned in Tennyson Road. Mr Sadler, aged 60, said: "They are just mindless idiots whoever has done this. Somebody could have been killed with that amount of livestock on the road."

Lancaster Place resident Mac Adams, aged 68, managed to capture the drama on his video camera.

He said: "I couldn't believe what was going on. People tried to take pictures but police said the flash would scare the cows so I grabbed my video camera. In the 48 years I've been here I've never seen anything like it." Alan Parr, 19, also of Lancaster Place, said: "I heard some noises and thought it was lads running around but then I saw it was cows. The smell was horrible"

Lil Lycett, who is 79, added: "The moos woke me up. I just couldn't believe my eyes. I thought I had dreamed it when I got up this morning."

Some were oblivious to the drama like Hilda Appleby, who woke up to find her neighbour's wall had been damaged.

She said: "I never saw a thing, I heard the neighbour's dog barking but thought it must have been at a squirrel or something. It is a shock."

Joanne Hunt, spokeswoman for West Midlands Police, said officers were probing the theft of the tractor and reports of damage to cars and other belongings.

"We have had reports of criminal damage which are being investigated," she said.