SADLY we get more and more used to hearing about crimes that are unbelievably despicable.

Elderly people who are on their own suffer the ordeal of their homes being ransacked or being robbed in the street often because they are vulnerable and are therefore easy targets.

That makes them easy prey for the cowardly, bullying thugs who seem to be all too common in our towns and cities and are adept at making the lives of others a misery.

But while these crimes are often committed on the spur of the moment by unthinking people desperate to fund a drug habit, the thieves who stole a collection of special bicycles from the CARE home for adults with learning disabilities seem to fall into a different category.

There must have been an element of planning in the actions of these offenders who turned up with a vehicle at night at the charity's Samlesbury centre and drove away with the adapted bicycles loaded in a trailer.

The bikes had been bought for £7,000 by charity fundraisers to give the 42 people who live at the home the chance to enjoy a little bit of fresh air and freedom on and off the site.

Only the lowest of the low would want to deprive them of such simple pleasures.