A PRIVATE investigator helped track down a cemetery thief who stole a handbag containing photos of a grieving mother's 10-day-old baby – after reading about her plight in The Sentinel.

John Booth is now starting a 10-month prison sentence after pinching two handbags from Hayley Evans's car as she visited Caverswall Cemetery on Mothering Sunday.

Hayley's handbag contained cash cards and a camera with treasured pictures of her son, Riley, who had died in December.

Booth's accomplice, Maria Lovatt, was also at the cemetery and later withdrew money from Hayley's account using the stolen cash cards.

Hayley called in police and told officers a man and a woman had been at a grave around the same time.

And when her story appeared in The Sentinel she was contacted by private eye, Geoff Harrison, below, of Kidsgrove, who offered his services for free.

Thanks to old-fashioned detective work, the 53-year-old tracked down Booth by:

Identifying the grave where the man and woman had stood. The memorial had the surname 'Booth' and a card attached to flowers was signed 'John'. The message on the flowers revealed he had been in prison;

Using The Sentinel's archives to find a John Booth who had previously appeared in court;

Finding Booth's address and seeing the yellow Ford Focus, which had been parked outside the cemetery, was now outside the thief's Blurton home.

After calling in police, Mr Harrison confronted Booth and was told the camera's memory card had been put down a grid.

The former Staffordshire bobby, who runs Absolute Assurance, said: "It was thanks to The Sentinel's archives I managed to piece this together.

"When I was a policeman I would go home feeling good after knowing I had done a good job, and I got that feeling from doing this.

"It took a six-foot fishing pole to get the memory card out of the grid, but I was delighted when I found it."

Hayley is thankful to get back some of her pictures, although the camera has never been found.

The 20-year-old, of Weston Coyney, above, said: "I was really gutted.

"I was just beginning to build myself back up and then something like this happens. I am relieved it's all over. Geoff Harrison has been absolutely fantastic. He tracked down John Booth and even got some of the pictures back.

"When someone offers to do that for free, it restores your faith in humanity."

Judge Paul Glenn jailed Booth, aged 29, of Pembridge Road, after he admitted breaking into the car, two counts of fraud and one attempted fraud.

Mother-of-three Lovatt, aged 39, who lives at the same address, was jailed for three months after admitting two counts of fraud and one attempted fraud.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard Lovatt has now lost her job as a cook at a Blurton school.

Paul Cliff, representing Booth, who has convictions for 47 previous offences, said: "These are sneaky, unpleasant offences which caused a great deal of distress to the victims."