Home guru Alison Cork is appealing for her ‘majestic’ and elegant’ £10,000 life-sized bronze stag to be returned after it was snatched from outside her Knightsbridge home.
The 60kg stag affectionately named ‘Henry’ had become a landmark for London cabbies and was loved by tourists and locals alike.
Thieves swiped the statue overnight on Saturday night with Alison and her family shocked to find out he had gone on Sunday morning.
The 60-year-old said the ordeal had left her feeling ‘very vulnerable’ and that she had lost faith in the police and ‘lawless London’.
Alison has instead launched a social media campaign to get the stag back and is offering a £1,000 reward for his safe return.
The stag affectionately named ‘Henry’ had become a landmark for London cabbies and was loved by tourists and locals alike
Home guru Alison Cork (pictured) is appealing for her ‘majestic’ and elegant’ £10,000 life-sized bronze stag to be returned after it was snatched from outside her Knightsbridge home
The home interiors expert and TV star told MailOnline: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realised he had been stolen. As you can imagine he’s been there for 20 years and then all of a sudden he’s just not.
‘But the sad thing is, this is not uncommon anymore in central London.
‘When we moved here 20 years ago I never had any qualms as a woman walking around early in the morning.
‘Now I sense that London is a very different place. There’s a great sense of unease, it feels like a very violent place.
‘When something happens you don’t have any confidence that anything will be done about it.
‘Why is it that when there is a demonstration, we can find £1,500 police but when you have something personal stolen, you are forced to fill out an online form that spends the first five minutes asking you what your ethnicity is and what gender you relate to – not what has been stolen.
‘I don’t think anything is going to be done and it just makes me feel very vulnerable, upset and sad.
‘I get that nobody has lost their life but that’s not really the point – the point is that it symbolizes that London is in a terrible way – as far as I am concerned crime has gone through the roof.’
Alison bought Henry 20 years ago as something ‘fun’ and ‘different on the street.
She said: ‘He was so loved by the community and it was a great way of breaking the ice with the locals.
‘He unofficially became part of the London cabbie knowledge – everyone loved him.
‘Tens of thousands of tourists have taken photos with him. I even designed the front of the house to look like a Scottish mountainside with stone chippings.’
Alison has now launched a social media appeal to get Henry back and is offering a £1,000 reward for his safe return. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the stag can contact Alison on Instagram via @alisoncork_home.
Alison has now launched a social media appeal to get Henry back and is offering a £1,000 reward for his safe return
Alison woke up on Sunday morning to find that the 60kg statue had been stolen from outside her home
The 60-year-old – who was awarded an MBE for services to female entrepreneurship – said the ordeal had left her feeling ‘very vulnerable’
She added: ‘The thieves certainly knew it was valuable as it is going to cost me £10,000 to replace.
‘They are just opportunists and they know that the police are not going to come after them.
‘The police don’t take it seriously as they know they are not going to get it back – they will only focus on the crimes where they think there’s a chance of getting a result and this will be bottom of their list of priorities.
‘So that’s why I’ve turned to the press and social media.’
She continued: ‘It was really sweet as I put something on Instagram just because I was feeling down and I immediately had around 300 responses.
‘You know nothing from the police but 300 responses from just, lovely, lovely members of the public who were saying, “Oh, God, no! I totally understand, something similar happened to me and I understand why you are so upset”.’
MailOnline has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment.
