Hi, my name is Kennedy Battey. I am a 24-year-old single mum to four beautiful children—three girls and one boy, aged 5, 3, 1, and just 6 months old.

I never imagined I would be writing something like this, but our lives changed in a matter of minutes.

I recently opened my new business in Worksop, selling Spanish cleaning products. This wasn’t just a business to me—it was everything. I put every penny I had into making it work. As a single mum raising four young children, this was my opportunity to build a stable future for my family and create something we could be proud of.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, that dream was shattered.

At around 6am, I was woken up and told that my shop had been broken into. I had to get my four children ready and take them with me to see the damage. Nothing could have prepared me for what I found.

Three individuals had smashed their way into my shop using bricks, causing destruction and taking away the business I had worked so hard to build. The stock I had spent thousands of pounds on was damaged, stolen, or lost. To make matters even harder, much of what remained had to be taken by the police as evidence during their investigation, leaving me unable to trade.

This is a brand-new business. We put everything we had into it. Every saving, every sacrifice, every bit of hope for a better future was invested into making this work for my children.

The people responsible have now been arrested, and I am grateful to the police for their work. But unfortunately, that doesn’t undo the damage that has been done or replace everything that was lost.

As a single mum of four very young children, I am now facing the heartbreaking reality of trying to rebuild from almost nothing. The costs of repairing the shop, replacing stock, securing the premises, and getting the business back on its feet are overwhelming.