A FAMILY has been left devastated after plans to move their wheelchair-bound mum back home before Christmas were halted following the theft of her son’s van and £10,000 worth of building tools.

Agnes McElhinney, 64, was due to leave The New Victoria Hospital in December, but now plans are up in the air as her son, Paul - who was renovating her and her husband’s new bungalow on Kingsmuir Drive in Rutherglen - has been left unable to finish vital work to make the house wheelchair-friendly.

Paul had bought the van and all of the tools himself for his own business, Calma Contracts, while also using the van for everyday runs with his kids, taking them to school and to the hospital to see Agnes.

Items including business flyers, children’s gloves and a kids car seat had been found on Tuesday thrown on the side of Fereneze Road in Barrhead, looking likely that the stolen van had been driven south of the city.

He said: “It wasn’t just my tools, but my kids stuff too. To have just dumped them all in a muddy puddle and driven off, it made me sick.”

“The entire family are devastated that mum won’t be home for Christmas. It’s heartbreaking that the family won’t be together, even the kids are heartbroken.”

Agnes, who has been permanently paralysed since suffering from a spinal stroke in November 2018, said: “Paul runs his own business and he wiped his diary for us to get work done to the house.

“We bought the house in October and there have been a lot of problems with it. Paul has been helping so I can get home for Christmas but that looks unlikely now. I’m devastated.”

Paul, who took up to eight weeks off from work to complete the bungalow renovation, parked his van outside his home on Ashmore Road in Merrylee on Monday night after arriving home from work. When he returned to the vehicle the next morning, the van and the tools worth up to £10,000 were missing.

Paul said: “There was no glass or the road or anything. It looks like they knew what they were doing and they’ve swiped it quickly without anyone noticing.

“We’re less than halfway through the work, we’ve just ripped out what was there so far - we were planning putting in a wetroom and ramps but now I’ve lost all my tools.

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to go on.”

Police Scotland said in a statement: “A report was made to police that a transit van had been stolen from outside a house on Ashmore Road, Glasgow overnight. Police enquiries are ongoing.”