A lady from Oxfordshire said she was ‘totally gutted’ when she found out her charity shop donation was thrown away.

Abbi Stewart-Smith, who lives in Weston-on-the-Green, donated a Carter’s brand crib and a baby bouncer swing to a local charity shop last Saturday.

Realising that there was a leg missing from the swing, she returned to the shop the following day.

Upon delivering the leg, she was told by a shop worker that they do not accept baby equipment for health and safety reasons.

After checking this was definitely the same charity shop that her husband gave the baby equipment to, the worker told her that it would have just been “chucked in the bin” and that Abbi could go and look if she wanted to.

Abbi wrote in a Facebook post following the event: “I was mortified, does anyone know if this is common practise?

“I’d have happily given that stuff away on Facebook or sold it but I wanted to give it to charity to raise money for them.

“With the number of people out there struggling at the minute, it really upset me that they could just throw stuff in the bin if they had mistakenly accepted it.”

After someone suggested to Abbi on Facebook that she should have freecycled the items, she replied: “I will next time. I’m just gutted, it was really nice stuff.”

 

Read more from this author

This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1