Real life grinches chopped down and stole 25 huge Christmas trees which a farmer had been growing for 10 years.

Oscar Pickess discovered the theft when he walked to the field about 100 yards from his home and saw that only the stumps of the Norway Spruce trees were left.

The 69-year-old, who has been growing Christmas trees for more than three decades, donates one each to St Andrew's Primary School in Great Yeldham and St Peter and St Thomas’s Church in Stambourne.

He said: “It guts you a bit this sort of thing, but you have got your health so you just have to bounce back up from it.

“They have not just taken one to two they have taken them to sell.

“I went down there to pick up one for the church but I had got down there and saw the trees had gone.

“I have lost some from the side of the road before but not down in the field, somebody knew where they were going.

“It will have a knock on effect for the next couple of years so we won’t have any for the church.”

Anyone with information about the theft from Cornish Hall End Road on December 5 is asked to call police on 101.