A nursery manager has revealed the venue has been impacted by a spate of alleged milk thefts.

Rachel Lee, manager of Explorers Elm Park, claimed that repeated thefts had happened from outside their premises in The Broadway.

Yesterday (January 4), the nursery posted a video on Facebook which appeared to show two people take some bottles of milk - it claimed this was part of a string of incidents.

Ms Lee said: "It's frustrating that the children come in and we don't have enough milk for breakfast.

"The odd pint here and there is not a big deal, but to come back - there's no way they [the alleged thieves] need seven bottles to themselves and that's what they stole.

"This impacts our day at the nursery, the children are offered a breakfast on arrival. If our milk has been stolen this means we have to try and get to Tesco's before the children have arrived to replace it."

The nursery manager claimed one of the alleged thieves came back again that day for the remaining bottles, and a second video posted by the nursery shows just one bottle remaining.

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Explorers Elm Park, a privately-owned day nursery in Hornchurch, caters for 46 children.

"As you can imagine one bottle is not going to go very far," Ms Lee said. "They [the alleged thieves] hid their faces from CCTV so I can only imagine they knew this was not an acceptable thing to do."

Ms Lee, who has been at the Elm Park branch for three years, said graffiti has previously been scrawled on a window.

She added that she has also seen teenagers kick bottles of milk down the street.

Explorers Elm Park has bi-weekly milk deliveries and Ms Lee claimed almost every week there are thefts.

Deliveries arrive overnight and staff cannot be there to receive it, she added.

Ms Lee said she has confronted a previous offender who was verbally abusive, but who she claimed subsequently stopped stealing.

She said they were not isolated incidents.

If someone is in desperate need and cannot afford a bottle of milk, the nursery has let it slide, she said.

The nursery confirmed it has not reported the latest incident to police.