THIEVES broke into the back garden of a house in Smithills and stole a motorbike worth £1,000.

The raiders managed to break a lock on the garden gate before stealing the Honda CR80 by cutting a chain it was attached to.

The offenders then fled the scene with the bike, with the owners of the house fast asleep inside.

The bike's owner, who asked not to be named, said: "They have come over the wall and snapped two locks but what gets me is there is a security light that is triggered by a motion sensor and that must have been on for a while but it obviously didn't bother them.

"I have had the motorbike for about two years and I have been working on it as a bit of a project, doing it up. It is an off-road motor cross bike and I think it is worth about a thousand pounds."

The bike itself is white, orange and black in colour and police are asking anyone who may have seen it to come forward with information.

The owner of the bike has put pictures of it on Facebook and has had several responses, with some suggestions that it was taken by people living in the nearby area.

He added: "We have been given some information regarding the theft and we are pretty sure it was taken by someone in our local area.

"I have had the bike for quite a while and have never had any issues before, I remember starting it up in the garden recently and so perhaps someone heard the noise at the time and realised I had a bike in the garden, so came back and stole it."

The thieves struck at about 1.30am on the morning of Monday December 15.

Greater Manchester Police is investigating and has urged anyone with information about the incident to contact them on 101.