TWO rival MPs have joined across the political divide to protect rural churches from thieves and vandals.

Gordon Prentice and Nigel Evans are concerned that valuable and irreplaceable stones are being taken from Christian buildings in their countryside constituencies.

They are calling for tougher action by police and church authorities to try to stop vital parts of religious properties ending up as decorations in London gardens.

Churches hit by the thefts include medieval Ghyll Church and Bracewell Church, in the West Craven area of Pendle, and Sawley Abbey in the Ribble Valley.

Pendle Labour MP Mr Prentice raised the issue with Stuart Bell, the veteran Labour MP who represents the Church of England in the Commons.

He said that one measure that could help was for the religious authorities to arrange for equal insurance premiums for all churches across the country so that parishes vulnerable to theft and vandalism did not end up with much bigger bills.

Mr Prentice said: "People in my constituency are absolutely fed up to the back teeth of historic artefacts being stripped from churches.

"Not long ago, the entire stone tiling from the medieval parish church at Ghyll was stripped.

"It disappeared down the M1 and is probably in a garden in Islington as I speak.

"I want you to speak to the Home Secretary Jack Straw about that and perhaps to designate police officers responsible for stolen stones, as Skipton does." Mr Bell said that nationally, more than 4,000 churches were hit last year by theft, vandalism and arson. Ten churches are attacked every day and one in four can expect to be a victim of crime every year.

He promised that the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, the church and the police were working together to combat the attacks in terms of security and new systems of marking property.

Mr Prentice said: "Weathered stone is very valuable and irreplaceable.

"People are regularly stealing it, and this is literally sacrilege. It's a sad day when even churches are targets.

"In Skipton they have a special policeman - a stone cop - responsible for trying to prevent such thefts and then track down where the stones go to.

"We have many rural churches in East Lancashire and if people see men loading stones into a van or on to a lorry at such a church, I would appeal to them to ring 999 and pray that the police turn up quickly."

Ribble Valley Tory Mr Evans said Sawley Abbey had suffered in particular because it was opened in the morning but there was no-one around to stop people wandering in and picking up stones.

He said: "I would back any measures to crack down on this. Having a special policeman dealing with stone theft from churches is a good idea."

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