“IDIOTS” who stole a lifebelt on York’s riverside and then dumped it 100 yards away have been accused of putting lives at risk.

Fishergate councillor Dave Taylor said he was walking back to his home from York city centre with neighbours at the weekend when they noticed a missing lifebelt on the wall of Tower Place, near the banks of the Ouse.

“While bemoaning the stupidity of the sort of people who think it’s funny to remove life-saving equipment, we’d walked on a hundred yards or so under Skeldergate Bridge to discover the lifebelt, abandoned by its presumably drunken thieves beside a litter bin,” Coun Taylor said.

“It’s back on the wall, for now, but I do hope that The Press’s Think, Don’t Swim campaign will make some of these idiots think better of stealing a lifebelt. They might be the ones that need it one day.”

Coun Taylor said he regularly walked along the riverside paths and he had seen lifebelts removed in the past.

He thought those responsible just did not realise the potentially fatal consequences if someone fell in the river and bystanders were unable to rescue them for want of a ring.

Three people have died in the river so far this year, including bartender Richard Horrocks, who drowned after jumping into the Ouse from a balcony at the end of his last shift at a bar in July.

His death prompted The Press to launch its campaign, which has the full backing of Richard’s family and also relatives of the other two people who have drowned this year.

Firefighters, who have been rescuing about one person a week from the river this year, have stressed the importance of lifebelts for anyone trying to help someone who has fallen in.

They have warned that if people instead enter the water to try to carry out a rescue, they put themselves at risk of also getting into difficulties and drowning.