By John Connell

Last updated at 13:44, Wednesday, 19 September 2012

An outraged house builder is offering a £500 reward for information leading to the arrest of burglars who stole from his new home while he was upstairs working on it.

Daniel Sowerby

Daniel Sowerby, 34, was installing plaster board on the third floor of his family home at Townhead in Dearham last week when several expensive items went missing from the porch.

They included a camera, cordless drill, a nail gun and a cordless impact driver.

But Daniel is particularly keen for the return of the camera which had family pictures, including photographs of his partner Faye Staniforth and their and their young daughter Evie.

The memory card also had pictures which showed the progress of the build.

He has also pledged to offer £500 for any information that leads to the return of the camera.

Daniel, a building control officer with Allerdale council, said: “I was really surprised that someone would have the audacity to come into my house while I was in there.

“The items had all been in the hallway downstairs. I was upstairs working. When I came back downstairs they were gone and I thought someone must have put them away.

“I didn’t think any more about it until Wednesday when I needed the drill.

“I then thought that may be one of the plumbers had taken it [by mistake] but they hadn’t got it. I then went to take some pictures and discovered the camera was gone too.”

Police are now requesting information in relation to the burglary on Tuesday.

A police spokeswoman said: “A number of items were taken including a Bosch 24V cordless SDS Drill in a blue box containing various drill bits, a Makita Impact Cordless Drill in a blue and green coloured box including batteries; a Paslode orange nail gun; and a Nikon D5100 camera in a black Nikon carry case containing two lenses and an SD [secure digital] memory card which has great sentimental value.”

Daniel, a building control officer for Allerdale council, had, is not only designing and building the four bedroom house – but giving updates on his progress with an online blog.

Every night, when he is not at work or looking after his daughter, you will find him hard at work on the building site often late into the night

He decided to start the blog to demonstrate that building control officers had to go through the same red tape as everyone else.

Daniel also wanted to show people how to build a house correctly “from inception to completion.”

Anyone with information is urged to contact the police on 101.

First published at 11:25, Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk