A PENARTH father has spoken of his disgust after heartless thieves stole a butterfly ornament from his daughter's grave just days after what would have been her 31st birthday.

Paul O’Shea, of Salop Street, said it was “despicable” that someone would steal the blue metallic butterfly from his daughter’s headstone at St Augustine’s Church in Penarth.

He said that it was securely fixed on to the headstone, along with a bunch of flowers, and if it had blown away it would have taken the flowers with it.

“It was too heavy for that,” he said.

“It was secured to the plaque and there is now no trace of it so someone must have taken it.”

He added: “Who would steal from a dead person?

“My first thought was that it had blown off. When I looked around I felt both sides and the top of it and couldn't find it, and thought who could stoop that low?”

Lisa O’Shea, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, died at the age of 30 on January 9 this year. She would have been 31 on December 4. The metallic butterfly was stolen on either December 7 or December 8.

Paul, who always puts fresh flowers on his daughter’s grave when he is walking their two dogs, said that he didn’t want to tell his wife Jean when he came home as he knew it would upset her.

“I can’t understand it,” she said.

“I don’t know how those people can look at themselves in the mirror.

“It’s disgusting that they would stoop that low, knowing that they could read the grave and see when she died and that it was her birthday.”

She added that Lisa’s cousin Sharon had put the 3-4inch fluorescent blue metallic butterfly on the grave.

“Sharon went to a lot of trouble and it was a lovely gesture,” she said.