Heartbroken daughter urges people who robbed her parents' house to come to her father's funeral

A heartbroken daughter whose parents were robbed of their life savings during their final holiday together has urged the burglars responsible to attend her father’s funeral.

Angela Straw’s parents Bryan and Jean Dyer, 87 and 86, were on holiday in Malta when burglars ransacked their home and made off with more than £30,000 in cash, their wills, pensions, deeds and insurance policies.

Daughter Angela, 51, was told by police the next day but decided not to tell her elderly parents so they could enjoy their holiday.

But after Bryan was admitted to hospital with a blood clot on his leg, medics in Malta found a cancerous tumour in his bowel and he died in hospital on the Mediterranean island on January 16.

Angela urged the burglars to come to his funeral to see the “devastation” that the family had suffered.

She said: “They were not responsible for my dad’s death and I am eternally grateful that he never found out about the burglary.

“But I just hope nothing good comes of what they’ve got.”

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Angela said she had made a conscious decision not to tell her elderly parents about the burglary on December 12 while they were still away.

She said: “They had already decided it was the last holiday they were having because of their age.”

She added: “They had ummed and ahhed about whether to go until the last minute until my dad said ‘come on – it might be the last time we can do it’. He had always been really robust and active about doing things.”

But on January 2 Bryan was admitted to hospital with a blood clot and the couple were told they could not fly home for six weeks.

While in hospital a cancerous growth was found in his colon and he died a fortnight later.

Mum-of-two Angela said: “They told me on January 13 everything was fine. Then on the Sunday they said the blood from the injections he was having had spread and caused a bleed on his lungs.

“He died in the early hours of Tuesday morning – he went from fit and healthy to dead in a fortnight – it’s heartbreaking.”

Describing the burglary at the couple’s home in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Angela said the thieves had “taken everything”.

“My mum and dad have scrimped and saved their whole working life,” she said.

“The money has always been their emergency fund in case anything happened to either of them and now my mum has come home to nothing.”

The couple, who were grandparents-of-five and great grandparents-of-three, had been married for 62 years.

A South Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said a property on Burncross Road, Chapeltown, was burgled sometime between 4pm on December 11 and 7.30am on December 12.