A THATCHAM family have raised money for children they do not even know after their son's bike was stolen and trashed.

Twelve-year-old Ben Hillier went to retrieve his bike that he used every day to travel to school to find it had been stolen back in February.

Just weeks before the incident, the family suffered a break in where bikes and gardening equipment had been stolen from their garage.

Seeing the family's string of bad luck, a family friend decided to set up a crowd funding page to raise money for a new bike for Ben.

Emma Hillier, Ben's Mum, said that the family had already bought a replacement and decided to use the money people had generously given to buy new bikes for other children.

She said: "We had already replaced Ben's bike, and we didn't want the money to go to waste so we thought we could use the £500 to get two new bikes for children who wouldn't necessarily have them.

"I got in touch with Caroline Lane from the council and Banjo Cycles to try and organise this and help us find the children who we could give these bikes to."

Eventually two children were selected to receive the bikes, 13-year-old Melissa Rideout and 10-year-old Dennis Hancock.

Caroline Lane, cycling coordinator for West Berkshire, said: "I had been contacted by Trinity School because they had a few doubts about a student who rode to and from school.

"However I'm not sure where those concerns came from because Melissa rode beautifully, but the problem was she was on this clonky bike that she was beginning to have outgrown, so I thought she would be perfect to receive one of these bikes."

Caroline added that it took a while to find the second candidate, and Dennis was chosen after Caroline had worked with him on a cycling course.

She said: "He was another fantastic cyclist, however he was borrowing a bike that was far too small for him so it took him a while to adjust.

"We chose Dennis and Melissa because we know they will be out and about on their bikes all the time "There are so many times when we do these courses and then the bikes go back in the sheds, we wanted to give them to students who will actually use them."