Hearse found in field

The incident happened at around 7pm on Thursday night as the proprietor of the business, David Hay, was loading flowers and wreaths into the distinctive Volvo car.

Mr Hay, whose premises is at 100 Spencer Road has appealed for anyone with information on the theft to contact him or the police.

Speaking about the theft of the car David Hay said: "At about 7pm on Thursday night I had the car loaded with flowers and wreaths for a funeral on Friday morning.

"I went into the shop to get the last wreath, when the lady in the shop next door came running in to say the car had taken off at high speed with the tail gate open.

"At that point we rang the police. The car is a Volvo V70 and there is maybe only one or two about.

"We were contacted then by phone to say that a wreath had been found in Chapel Road and another one had been found on the Strabane old road and we are just totally devastated. My wife has been up from 6.30am this morning trying to get the order made back up again."

It must have pretty obvious to the thieves that the car was designed for only one purpose. The Volvo has a deck, with no back seats in it and was full of floral tributes in preparation for a funeral.

David Hay stated that his priority was to get the funeral completed.

A taxi man who contacted Mr Hay said that the car almost struck people on Chapel Road it was travelling at such high speed.

"The driver followed the car for a while but halted when wreaths began to fall out of the funeral car. Instead of driving over the floral tributes he decided to stop and return the flowers to the business. It is thought the stolen vehicle may have been heading towards Corrody Road or Woodside Road perhaps on its way towards Strabane."

However on Saturday morning Mr Hay, a brother of Northern Ireland Assembly speaker William Hay, received a phone call informing him that his funeral car had been found.

"It was found by a farmer in his field at Ballindrait outside Lifford in Co. Donegal. He informed the guards who told the police here and they in turn contacted me. I don't know what condition the car is in because the guards took it to the station in Letterkenny to carry out forensic tests on it and I'm waiting to be told when I can go and collect it.

"This whole thing caused serious trauma to the family of the deceased who was buried on Friday afternoon - the day after the car was stolen but fortunately we were able to replace the damaged wreaths with fresh wreaths. I want to thank everyone who helped me to get the car back."

SDLP Waterside councillor and former Mayor of Londonderry Gerard Diver condemned the theft and said: "It beggars belief that anyone would stoop as slow as to steal a funeral car."