Barnardo’s staff left devastated after break-ins
Volunteer Andrew Wheatley with the damaged door at Barnardos. (d604c302)
A MORLEY charity shop is feeling the brunt of a spate of burglaries after thieves broke into the store three times in five days.
Barnardos in Windsor Court was targeted in the early hours of Wednesday and Saturday last week, then again on Monday.
The burglars broke in through the front doors and ransacked the shop, causing damage and making off with money on the first two occasions. Fortunately, the safe was empty for the most recent attempt on Monday morning.
The store is one of more than 500 Barnardos outlets in the country and is run by volunteers, with all profits going towards helping vulnerable children.
Annie Wood, manager of the shop, said: “It is heartbreaking for everyone involved, after all their hard work they are devastated.
“We are feeling pretty low at the moment.”
The burglaries are the latest in a series of such crimes in Morley. As well as Barnardos, thieves broke into a Carphone Warehouse store on Queen Street on Monday morning.
There was also an attempt to burgle Superdrug in Windsor Court, though the intruders were unable to get through the protective shutters. The same Superdrug store had been burgled last summer, with more than £2,000 of goods stolen.
Julie Allott, who works at Superdrug, said: “The alarm went off when they broke the shutters but this didn’t put them off.
Fortunately they couldn’t open the shutters which were protecting the doors.
“Last year they got in through the back doors and a week after that they tried to get back through the same way, which had been secured.
“It’s much harder to get in through there now.”
Charlie Molesbury, who runs a nearby newsagents, was one of the first people to discover the break-ins.
He said: “I went into Barnardos and then heard the alarm going off in Carphone Warehouse.
“There are no police round here so it’s getting to be a bit of a hotspot. They’re hitting us left, right and centre.”
Barnardos is the second charity in Morley to be hit by thieves in the last month. In December, thieves stole £300 worth of Christmas presents meant for local children from the Salvation Army on Ackroyd Street, which the Mayor of Morley, Coun Andy Dalton, described as a “wicked act”.
Insp Paul Sullivan, who leads Morley Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “We are aware that a number of premises in the Morley town centre area have been broken into over the last couple of days and are following a few lines of enquiries.
“We are also enhancing patrols overnight in the area.”
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Weather for Leeds,Yorkshire
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Today
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