A DISABLED woman has been left scared and without transport after her mobility scooter was thrown into the river by a group of yobs.

Steph Holden, 60, was using the scooter in the centre of Horwich on Friday afternoon.

She left her transport outside the bank as she went inside the building to run an errand.

She was very confused to discover her transport missing when she left the building, attempting to walk home through Old Station Park where she found a group of boys dumping her scooter in the river.

Her son Simon, and his girlfriend Kelly Cleary, say that her scooter is now broken, and Mrs Holden is very upset.

Miss Cleary said: “She’d been in the bank and she left the scooter outside and they must have taken it then.

“She does get a bit confused so when she came out she thought she’d come out without it and tried to walk back.

“She clearly saw the kids who were doing it and when I spoke to their parents, the responses were an absolute joke, it was worse than what the kids had done.

“I’ve got a teenager and if it’d been my kid I would have been so apologetic and tried to help as much as I could, but one mum called her a nuisance for leaving her scooter everywhere, even though she was just going into the shops.”

A passerby stopped to pull Mrs Holden’s scooter out of the water, and helped to return it to her family home.

She was later able to identify some of the boys from photographs shown to her by her son and his girlfriend.

The pair were made aware of one young man who had recorded the incident in a video posted to Snapchat.

The scooter no longer works, and the family are unsure if it can be fixed.

Until it’s fixed, Mrs Holden, who suffers with COPD and lung disease, will be unable to run her own errands as she struggles to make the return trip between the town centre and her home.

Miss Cleary added: “We’re trying to encourage her to stay at home at the moment because of her lung conditions but she’s in that house on her own and she’s scared.

“She moved in there to look after her mum and her dad and they’ve both died recently so now she’s worrying about the house and selling it.

“We’ve got no idea if her scooter can be fixed or not, maybe it just needs to dry out a bit, maybe it’s completely broken, we just have to wait and see.”

The incident took place sometime between 5-6pm on Friday and has been reported to the police.

Greater Manchester Police have been contacted for comment.