A mirrored sculpture which appeared on April Fool's Day and was due to be auctioned for charity has been stolen.

Bemused readers contacted The Argus after the odd-shaped monolith suddenly appeared on the grass verge in Roedean Road, Brighton.

Phone calls to Brighton and Hove authorities and the nearby Roedean School failed to unearth any clues to solve the mystery until we ran an article appealing for help.

Eventually businessman Paul Lewis, 44, who owns bespoke glass company Silver in St James Street, Brighton, owned up.

He said he had created the sculpture out of offcuts of mirrored glass and had planted it there as a joke and hoped to raise money for the Meningitis Trust by auctioning it.

However driving past the site on Saturday he was gobsmacked to find that it had gone.

Mr Lewis said: "I can't believe somebody has stolen it. People can be so dreadful.

"Somebody has decided to nick it and I can't understand why. It's so obvious what it looks like, whoever has got it is going to be caught. It's unique.

"We were hoping to raise about £1,000 with it for charity and it's wrong for somebody to have taken it.

"A couple of people had offered £500 for it while another had offered £700.

"The top foot and a half was bolted in and whoever stole it would've had to unscrew the top.

"It has to be moved in two pieces and when I did it I had to have my lorry. The people who stole it must've also had a lorry.

"It wasn't particularly valuable at all. You wouldn't get £50 scrap for it. It would've been far harder to lug around than for what you would've got for it.

"Pranksters may have just moved it and I hope that is the case. I'm upset because we were trying to raise money for the charity."

It is the latest in a long line of unusual thefts.

Last month the top half of a mannequin waitress was stolen from outside the Bubble Kitschen cafe, in Kensington Gardens, Brighton.

Only the legs of the model waitress, named Glenda, were left leaving cafe owners Lisa and Miles Heathfield scratching their heads as to who would want half a dummy.

In 2003 a dolphin weathervane was stolen from the top of the Victorian Madeira Lift in Madeira Drive.

It had been feared to have been lost forever although the ornament was returned last year in mysterious circumstances after it was handed into Brighton's John Street police station.

A Sussex Police spokesman said the theft had been reported and that officers would be investigating.

If anybody has any information about the theft, or where the sculpture could be, they should ring Sussex Police on 0845 60 70 999.