She also wants Dubbo City Council to consider ramping up security at the cemetery on the Cobbora Road in an effort to deter vandals and thieves.

Ms Ryan has been visiting the grave of Louise Anne Nolan at the New Dubbo Cemetery for most of her life and the shock of seeing it defiled has made her sad and angry.

On August 6 this year, the date when Louise would have turned 18 years old, the extended Nolan family organised for the erection of the headstone with an angel cemented at each side.

Artificial flowers and butterflies on sticks were also placed at the graveside, only to be removed by a person or people unknown.

This week’s heartbreaking discovery follows the theft about two months ago of two moveable angel statues from the headstone on the grave of Ms Ryan’s grandmother, Lorraine May Nolan, who died last year.

Ms Ryan, who has contacted council and the police, told of the emotional turmoil of coming across the latest attack on a family member’s resting place.

“I felt really sad, disgusted, just numb all over,” she said.

“I couldn’t believe that someone could do this to a little baby’s grave, or any grave.

“How could you come out here and steal

from a grave? It’s worse than stealing from a house.”

Ms Ryan approached the Daily Liberal in the hope of pricking the conscience of those who have hurt her family.

“I hope whoever has done this will see it in the paper and feel disgusted with themselves,” she said.

“We’re a really good family. We don’t deserve this.”

Ms Ryan believes that action may be required if her words fall on deaf ears.

“It would be good to have security out here, even though it’s sad to say that, because it’s a cemetery,” she said.

“But even bigger fences around here, to lock it up at night, would be good.”

The council’s community services director David Dwyer has called the theft of the angels a “pretty low act” and expressed concern for Ms Ryan and her family.

But he said there was “no talk” within council of erecting a fence like the $70,000 and six-foot-high version that went up at the Old Dubbo Cemetery after a rampage by vandals caused up to $200,000 damage.

The old cemetery, between Cobbora Road and Myall Street, is now locked at night with Macquarie Alarm Services in charge of “opening and closing it”.

“But we’ve had parts of the fence stolen, parts of the fence broken, and physically-able people can scale it,” Mr Dwyer said.

The director noted that the old cemetery was more visible to the community than the new cemetery on the edge of the city.

“There’s no residents within cooee to keep an eye on it,” he said when suggesting that it was experiencing “petty vandalism”.

Mr Dwyer said the council sent a “maintenance guy” to the new cemetery 30 hours a week to keep it tidy and ordered.

But detecting thieves and vandals at cemeteries wasn’t straightforward.

“You could see someone putting something in their pocket, but how do you know it’s not theirs,” Mr Dwyer said.

The council is suggesting families of

the deceased “not leave loose items” on their graves.