CHURCH bosses are desperate to find relatives of people buried with ancient headstones which were damaged when a stolen car crashed into the graveyard.

The driver of the vehicle managed to flee after smashing into the lychgate and eight gravestones in the middle of the night at All Saints Church in Brightlingsea last month.

Generous online donors have pledged almost £1,000 during a month-long crowdfunding campaign to help fix the damage, while more donations have been physically handed over.

And while the lychgate is covered by the church’s insurance, gravestones are technically the responsibility of relatives of people who are buried there.

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The Rev Caroline Beckett has praised people’s generosity and urged anyone who may have connections to the damaged graves to get in touch.

She said: “People have been wonderful. It has been quite a complicated situation because the lychgate is insured and is something the church is responsible for but the gravestones are not.

“Nobody ever expects they will ever have to do anything with them again but they are the responsibility of the family.

“Part of what we are trying to do is track down the relatives of the people who they belong to and it is slightly tricky because some of them are ancient.

“Sometimes in these situations gravestones are just left lying where they end up, but I do not think that would be good enough for Brightlingsea.

“The incident did stir up a lot of feeling in the community.

“We wanted to start the crowdfunding pages because we didn’t want to take away from the money the church gives to charity.”

Mrs Beckett said she was determined the lychgate be restored as soon as possible.

“Brides and grooms have posed in front of the lychgate for so many years and it has become part of wedding tradition in Brightlingsea and something we want to get back,” she said.

“With the insurance situation I am confident it will be done quicker than the gravestones which is likely to be slower.”

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Services at the church have continued as usual despite the disruption, including the ever popular Christmas Tree Festival.

Mrs Beckett added:”We managed to get the area safe quickly.

“Our wonderful scaffolder Colin Gould allowed us to paint the scaffolding black for the Christmas Tree Festival because usually the outside of the building is decorated as well.

“I conducted a wedding last week and we are still open for weddings, baptisms and funerals.

“We don’t want to have to cancel anything.”

No arrests have been made in connection to the crash.