A war memorial installed to remember three Bradford mill workers killed during the Second World War has been moved after fears emerged that thieves were trying to steal it.

The plaque, which was attached to a wall near Tesco’s Great Horton store, the former site of Westcroft Mills, is now in nearby St John’s Church.

John Benson, of funeral directors Joseph A Hey and Son in Great Horton Road, ensured that the memorial was moved after he noticed the Yorkshire stone around it had been chipped away.

He thought someone may have tried to prise it away from the wall and arranged for a permanent home for the plaque inside the church, next to a Second World War memorial for parishioners.

Mr Benson said: “We feel there may be relatives still living in Bradford. I don’t want to upset anybody but we would like to do something and if nobody objects we would like to have it installed properly in the church by Remembrance Sunday.

“The last thing we want is for somebody to go up to its former site on Remembrance Sunday and it not to be there.”

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