Clair Kami said her heart is completely broken by the loss
A couple who had saved for nine years to afford their dream saw it snatched away in seconds. Clair Kami, 31, and her partner Martin Chidlow, 44, both from Huyton, bought a van earlier this year and spent thousands of dollars converting it into a camper.
On July 11, Clair said she dropped off their pride and joy campervan at a garage in Vauxhall. The van had failed its MOT and was sitting outside on the street when it was stolen at around 2.20pm.
Clair said she doesn’t know how the thieves were able to make off with the van so quickly, having taken it without using the key. The 31-year-old said the couple had worked tirelessly to save up for the van since meeting nine years ago and are now “devastated” that it has been stolen, along with sentimental items inside that belonged to Clair’s late mother and girlfriend.
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She told the Liverpool ECHO: “We had nothing when we first got together and we’ve worked our way up to this. We’ve worked for years to buy the bus until we were financially stable. We spent about £15,000 of our hard-earned wages buying it and now it’s been taken away from us. It’s awful, there are no words for it. It’s horrible, I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle at the moment but all we can do is hope.”
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Clair told the ECHO how she took the van to its routine MOT. She said: “As far as we know someone jumped in and took it, the keys are still in the garage, I’ve had them in my hands. [the thieves] “We did it quickly and we don’t know how, there is no spare key.”
Clair said that in addition to the bus, there were also a number of sentimental items inside that “mean everything to her”. She added: “They’re small things, to me they mean everything, but to other people they mean nothing.
“There was a broken locket chain on the inside with a picture of me and my mother. I lost her ten years ago and we took that locket with us on all of our adventures so she could be there. My mother was unwell and bedridden before she died so she couldn’t go anywhere…[the locket] was our way of taking my mother with us, we took her everywhere.
“I also lost my baby cat in March – she was my world – she lived up to her name, she was my baby. I had her original paw print cards hanging in the mailbox and there were pictures of her hanging in the mailbox. Then I unexpectedly lost one of my best friends to cancer six months ago, it was a long painful six month battle for her and there were things of her in there.
“They were all the little things that mean nothing to anyone else, but mean everything to me. There was a Baby Yoda ornament that was hers, that she gave to me; a knitted heart – it came in two pieces, one part went in the box with my friend, and one was with me – they’re the littlest things that mean nothing to anyone else, but they mean everything to me.”
She added: “The van is so important to us. We’ve only had it for a few months and have done so much to make it feel like a home on wheels. It’s completely broken my heart, this year has just been awful.
“We got it [the van] to get that sense of freedom and escape from everything and the hardships that have been there, we spent nine years together picking up the pieces of previous relationships and financial hardships and finally got to a point where we could start our relationship and do things for ourselves. This bus was our beginning.
“It was always a relief when we were on the bus, it was the only time I could relax when I was in it. I feel like I was robbed of my own freedom. The bus itself was metal, but the meaning behind it and the things in it were everything. We’ve been through so much over the years and it was finally that one good thing we had.”
The couple had planned to take the campervan to Scotland to do the North Coast 500. Clair added: “It hurts that we’re now having to pay about £15,000 out of pocket. I feel devastated, completely devastated after everything that’s happened this year. I think this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The only good thing we had is gone now.”
A spokesman for Merseyside Police said: “We can confirm that we have received a report of a stolen Citroen van in Liverpool, on Thursday 11th July at around 2.20pm. The incident is still under investigation and if you have any information please get in touch by calling 101 or DM @MerPolCC quoting reference number 24000609488.”