‘My £3k bill for shopping while I slept’
Dasha in wild with 2 cubs after years caged as entertainment
DISORDER Kelly has tests A MUM has spent £3,000 in internet shopping sprees while fast asleep.
Kelly Snipes, 37, has unwittingly bought items such as a basketball court.
Her nocturnal shopping – using her smartphone – began seven years ago.
To avoid going into debt she returned all the items.
She also overdosed on medication while asleep.
Kelly, of Basildon, Essex, said: “It was horrible – I didn’t know what I was going to do in the night.”
Docs found she often stopped breathing at night.
It made her brain wake partially and may have caused the sleep shopping.
Kelly was diagnosed with sleep disorders parasomnia and sleep apnea.
She now wears a type of oxygen mask at night and it has solved the problems. IAR CHARITY WHICH SAVED CAGED ANIMALS A BROWN bear cuddles her daughter for the first time in the wild after being saved by Daily Mirror readers.
Dasha spent her life caged by a restaurant which used her to amuse diners and fed her scraps near Yerevan, Armenia.
But the 10-year-old mum now lives with Coco and her brother Luca in a secret location in the Caucasus mountains.
Dasha was rescued along with her mate Misha in 2017 by International Animal Rescue, helped by Mirror reader donations, but the male bear tragically died.
It was only after the Sussex-based charity’s volunteers freed Dasha that they realised she was pregnant. A few months later she gave birth and was placed with her cubs in a special enclosure with minimum human contact, a crucial step to surviving on their own in the wild.
Dasha and the 14-month-olds will now be monitored in the mountains by rangers and a satellite tracker.
Brown bears are often caged in appalling conditions near restaurants and shopping centres in Armenia.
IAR has won the backing of officials and aims to free up to 80 bears with Armenia’s Foundation for the Protection of Wildlife.
The charity said: “Every year wild bears are illegally caught by poachers in Armenia. Once captured, many of them end up in small, squalid cages in restaurants and other public entertainment venues as a tourist attraction. Some are kept in bus depots, others are hidden from view in dark cellars. Some of the bears are mentally and physically damaged by the boredom and frustration of their miserable existence behind bars.”
The project was boosted by generous donations from Daily Mirror readers.
Armenia’s government offered its full support and the restaurant which owned the bears co-operated.
IAR chief executive Alan Knight, who was in Armenia for the rescue in 2017, added: “Many bang their heads to relieve the boredom. It is heartbreaking We are determined to bring it to an end.”
■ To donate phone 01825 767688 or visit internationalanimalrescue.org/donate
Bears are damaged by their miserable existence
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