Sarah Todd: Rotten egg steals from our daughter, but it's not worth calling police

As the red-head in the family, it's normally me who gets most hot-under-the-collar about these things. But the usually laid back Husband was, for once, worse than me in the vow of what he'd like to do to the culprits.

Enough is enough. The stall has been brought off the roadside and up the top of the lane outside our house. The straw bale the eggs sat on had been down there quite a while and so it was sodden. There's nothing worse than lifting wet bales, but yours truly was so mad it was carted away as if it was the scruff of the thief's neck and now my back's jiggered.

The nine year-old entrepreneur probably won't get as many customers now, as rather than simply pulling up at the roadside, they'll have to physically turn up our lane. Some might not bother to read the sign – explaining where the eggs have moved to – and simply think she's no longer selling.

Apparently, the once common roadside sight of honesty boxes is on the way out. Smallholder societies and the National Farmers' Union have spoken out about the increasing number of thefts, saying it has a knock-on effect on rural communities.

The image in my mind of the thief is of some lad, probably wearing a hoodie and his trousers half-way down his backside. That's a terribly stereotypical conclusion to jump to, but I can't believe somebody from my generation or older would stoop so low as to steal from what's obviously a child's little enterprise.

Our daughter was adamant that we should call the police. This was sad, to explain to her that "there's no point" calling them. Something that was illustrated just the day after, when we witnessed a car accident. Somebody overtook a caravan like an idiot, forcing the holidaymaker to slam his brakes on. The caravan then started snaking across both carriageways – ending up at the other side of the road.

Once home, it seemed only right to telephone the police and explain what we'd seen.

The thought struck that the caravan driver might need help or that the other driver might cause another accident. To say I was made to feel like the guilty party is an understatement. Of course, it was impossible to speak to a police officer at the local station – do they exist anymore? It was a nameless switchboard operator who spent what must have been about 10 minutes asking pointless questions such as "are you white British?" What's that got to do with anything? And all this time, the thoughtless devil who had caused the accident was driving further away from the scene.

We could have shaped better throwing a few eggs at him. At least we'd have felt better…