A MULTIPLE sclerosis sufferer has been left housebound after thieves stole and trashed her specially-adapted van.

Judith Hurst, 62, says she has been "shattered" by the theft of the van from outside her home in Wains Road, Dringhouses.

She said she had suffered from MS for 30 years, requiring her to use a wheelchair in recent years.

For two years she had been housebound, apart from ambulance trips to the hospital and occasional trips in a special bus into the city centre.

But 20 months ago, she and her husband Reg - known by everyone as Jock - used their savings to buy a Renault van worth £900 from the MS Society, which no longer needed it.

The van, adapted to take wheelchairs, gave her the ability to get where she wanted in York, when she wanted - for example, to the hospital, supermarket or pub.

"You can imagine her joy when we got the van," said Jock. "We could go for trips into York when we wanted, and hospital visits were shortened to about one and a half hours - prior to that it could take four hours or more."

But in the early hours of last Tuesday, Jock was awake in the night and heard the noise of revving and looked out to see thieves disappearing round the corner in the van.

The vehicle was found the next day in Woodthorpe. "But they had trashed it. They had driven it into a wall, and the front and back were damaged."

The couple fear there may be damage to the chassis as well, and it will be written off by the insurers. In that case, they know it will be very hard to find another vehicle so well adapted to take her wheelchair for the modest insurance pay-out.

"I am absolutely shattered," said Judith. "It leaves me housebound again. They are just vandals, aren't they?"

Jock said: "If the offenders are caught, what will the punishment be? Not as severe as the one my wife will suffer. Shocks like this will have ongoing effects on her illness."

Updated: 11:13 Monday, September 29, 2003