The triumphant return of Mr Sheffield

Good morning  — and welcome to this week’s Thursday edition of The Tribune.

Last Friday afternoon, in our new office at Leah’s Yard, I heard Dan gasp from his desk across the room. “They’ve found him,” he told me, clutching his phone in one hand, eyes wide. He hardly needed to clarify — who else could it be? — but he did: “They’ve found Mr Sheffield.”

Rest assured, readers, we were in bits. Not just The Tribune team, mind, but the entirety of Mill Media Co, a budding news empire that will (very soon) stretch from Birmingham to Glasgow. “I’m going to be sick from excitement,” wrote Abi Whistance, staff writer on the Liverpool Post, in the company-wide chat. Clearly, the deep love this horse’s owner has for him — and her agony after he was stolen in an early-morning heist last summer — is infectious. I famously don’t even like horses and, as anyone who has had the misfortune to know me in the last year can confirm, I was very much swept up in the drama of this case.

Today’s part-paywalled story includes an anonymous late-night call, a clandestine hostage handover and a highly emotional reunion.

Your Tribune briefing

🥘In Now Then, the founders of “one of Sheffield’s best kept secrets” — The Hide on Scotland Street — reflect on the last decade, as they hand the keys over to its new owners. The venue and small business hub is perhaps best known for its Street Food Friday night, an event that predated our city’s current love affair with all things street food. If you’re not familiar with The Hide, you can visit during their annual open day on 22nd September if you RSVP by email.

💷 The Integrated Care Board (ICB) for South Yorkshire — the NHS body responsible for developing the region’s five-year plan for health services — paid management consultants over £1 million in the last six years to develop strategies for GP practices and primary care. Pulse, a trade publication for GPs, reveals this is the second highest sum reported in England, although some ICBs did not respond to their FOI requests. The Doctors' Association UK (DAUK) told Pulse it has “a lot of concern” about the use of private consultancy firms by ICBs, particularly when those consultants do not have “an understanding of the complexity of patient care in the community”.

♻️ From the end of March 2026, Sheffield residents will finally be able to recycle plastic pots, tubs and trays, as well as cartons and aluminium foil, following an upcoming change in the law. The following year, it will even be possible to recycle plastic film. Ahead of this change, Sheffield Council is consulting residents on how they would like the expanded system to operate — let them know your thoughts here.

Things to do

🏃 On Friday and Saturday, runners and hikers can take on the annual Peak District Challenge. There are four different trails with varying levels of difficulty, ranging from Copper (25km in up to nine hours) to Gold Ultra (100km in up to 24). The routes all start from Hathersage Memorial Hall and have refreshment checkpoints at around each 10km mark. Tickets range from £49 to £74, depending on the level selected, and all tickets include a stew supper on Saturday night. 

🎶 On Saturday night, indie-folk singer Alwyn Jones is performing at the Hallamshire Hotel, with support from Surf Jaz and Robyn Gair. Jones is Manchester-based but originally from Sheffield and is influenced by artists like John Martyn, Jeff Buckley and Wunderhorse. Doors are at 8pm and advance tickets are available for £7 here.

🎹 Also on Saturday night, as part of the 10th Nether Edge Festival, Ukrainian-born classical pianist Daria Golovchenko will perform at St Andrews Church. After her debut performance at last year’s festival, Daria was one of the finalists on Channel 4’s The Piano, in which she was mentored by Mika. Tickets are £20 and available here.

The triumphant return of Mr Sheffield

For months last autumn and this spring, in fits and starts around my other journalistic duties, I tried to convince a handful of local private investigators to offer their services, pro bono, in the quest to recover a stolen horse. This is exactly as much of an uphill battle as you might imagine. 

My pitch was this: in the early hours of 11th August last year, a pony called Mr Sheffield was stolen from his owner in a targeted heist. The thieves were in and out in a flash. Clearly, they knew who they were looking for and where he was being kept; ergo, they had either visited Mr Sheffield’s owner, horse breeder Stacey Gill, at her stable before, or they’d been tipped off by somebody who had — a compelling lead. 

The story made national headlines, in part because of how openly devastated Stacey was by her loss. It had nothing to do with Mr Sheffield’s monetary value (although this was considerable) and everything to do with the intensity of their bond. “It’s like someone took one of my kids,” she told The Tribune earlier this year. “My life revolved around him.” The Gill family couldn’t afford to hire a private investigator — they were only able to offer a £20,000 reward for a horse worth an estimated £100,000, after all — and frankly, neither could The Tribune. But, I pointed out, we could offer a willing PI the incredible free promotion of a full-length feature, tailing them as they tailed Mr Sheffield, and the opportunity to cover themselves in glory if they cracked the case.

I got the phone put down on me a lot. Professionals with decades of police or even military experience cut me off mid-sentence to explain, politely but through gritted teeth, that this was not the kind of thing they did. Finally, one told me he’d at least consider it, mainly because he found the whole idea very novel. While he mulled it over, could I find out more about what Stacey knew?

I wasn’t in direct contact with Stacey at that point; she was far too devastated to come to the phone. Instead, Lisa Dean — the founder of Beauty’s Legacy, a charity dedicated to rescuing lost, stolen and abandoned animals — was interceding with me on her behalf. The charity was being careful not to publicly disclose any leads for fear of spooking Mr Sheffield’s captors into making him even harder to find. And, with all due respect, they weren’t going to use a professional blabbermouth as their messenger for such sensitive information. But they were willing to meet with the PI and share what they knew in an attempt to entice him on board.

In the end, I’m afraid this meeting never took place. The investigator decided getting involved was more likely to damage his brand than bolster it. He feared looking incompetent if he didn’t succeed and assured me that success was all but impossible. This was clearly the handiwork of professional horse thieves, he said. He put good money on Mr Sheffield having already been smuggled out of the country. Stacey was, unfortunately, never going to see him again.

He was wrong. Last Friday, 13 months after he was snatched from her, Stacey finally got to hold Mr Sheffield in her arms once more. In a video posted to X by Beauty’s Legacy, you can see Stacey brace herself on the stable door before their tearful reunion. She was terrified, Lisa tells me, that she might open it and find the Mini Cob she doted on from birth no longer recognised her. “It took him a few seconds,” Lisa admits, “but he did know her. You can see his eyes go wide and he kisses her face. Horses are such loyal creatures. People underestimate their loyalty and intelligence.” Having Mr Sheffield back felt like a dream, Stacey told The Star. “I used to dream about just finding him in a field and him looking at me. It’s bizarre.”

In The Tribune’s previous piece, I compared Lisa Dean of Beauty’s Legacy to Liam Neeson’s character in the 2008 action film Taken, a man who tracks down his teenage daughter after she is kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring. In this case, it was a particularly pertinent comparison. Stacey has always suspected that Mr Sheffield was taken for breeding purposes — his chestnut Appaloosa colouring makes him a valuable rarity, and any foals he sires could share this trait — and from his injuries, Lisa tells me on the phone earlier this week, it seems obvious that he was put to work in this regard. “I think they have used him and abused him until he’s of no further use.”

Mr Sheffield might be home — still a little timid, but whinnying and playing with his toys again — but, for the pony, his family and even Beauty’s Legacy, this ordeal isn’t over yet.