A scooter thought to have been stolen from outside its elderly owner’s home has been found.

As reported in last week’s newspaper, Emily Buckfield, 87, and her daughter, June Halsey, appealed for a suspected thief to return the £1,000 motorised scooter taken from a lock-up next to a warden-assisted block of retirement flats.

Mrs Buckfield, from Forest Dene Court, Cedar Road, Sutton, had not used the scooter for months, while she recovered from two hip operations, the last one being a month ago.

When she came to use the scooter again, it was gone, and she reported it stolen to police.

But it emerged the son of one of Mrs Buckland’s fellow residents had taken the scooter by mistake.

He was injured in an accident and asked to borrow his mother’s scooter, which was stored in the same lock-up.

Confusion over the description meant he took Mrs Buckfield’s scooter by mistake, after the key he had could start it.

He apologetically confessed to taking it after reading in the Sutton Guardian the missing scooter matched the description of the one he was using.

Mrs Buckfield was due to be reunited with her scooter this week.

But she had already been offered a scooter by one kind-hearted reader who read about the apparent theft.

Retired builder John Boyne, 67, of Ridge Road, North Cheam, contacted this newspaper to offer a spare scooter he had to Mrs Buckfield.

After Mr Boyne, who has needed a mobility scooter for the past three years because he has severe arthritis, learned the 87-year-old no longer needed it, he asked for anyone else who needed it to come forward.

He said: “I have another one now so don’t need it anymore, so it should go to someone who really needs it.”

If you are interested in the scooter email mwatts@london. newsquest.co.uk.