CASH raised to help fund a life-saving operation for a baby was among £10,000 stolen from a pub.

Thieves made off with the cash from the Melrose, in Westcliff , including £920 raised for Lily-Mai Murray, who needs a £50,000 operation after being born with a rare brain condition.

Landlady Susan Griffiths said: “It’s dreadful. I don’t know how to explain to her mum the money isn’t there.”

Burglars broke in through Mrs Griffiths’s bedroom window while she was away and smashed into the pub’s office as her pregnant daughter, Sarah, slept upstairs.

They took the donation, which was raised through a fun day at the pub, and the other cash from a locked filing cabinet.

Among the money stolen were the takings from Mrs Griffiths’s daughter Samantha’s card shop, Love & Kisses, which is opposite the pub in Hamlet Court Road .

Mrs Griffiths, who also works at the shop, had advised Samantha to keep the cash at the pub after Love & Kisses was the subject of an arson attack on Monday, September 10.

The thieves also took Sarah’s iPhone from the lounge upstairs.

Mrs Griffiths, who has been prescribed sleeping tablets to cope with the shock, said: “It’s going to be hard work trying to get back on top of things.

“I had to get credit for beer from the brewery and I couldn’t pay the rent last week.

“My kids are more than upset because they were on the premises.”

The burglars are believed to have got to the bedroom window across a flat roof from Burdett Avenue, behind the pub, between midnight and 9am on Friday, September 14.

Lily-Mai, from Chadwell St Mary, was born with vein of galen malformation, which affects the blood vessels in her brain and puts a dangerous strain on her heart.

The condition has left the tot blind and suffering a string of medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, water on the brain, sleep apnoea and epilepsy.

Anyone with information on the burglary can call 101.