CCTV captures burglars stealing £40,000 of devices from shop

Tuesday 18th February 2020 17:09 EST
 

A family have shared shocking CCTV footage of burglars ransacking their shop and stealing £40,000 worth of stock in a bid to 'get justice'.

At around 4am last Monday morning (Monday, February 10) thieves broke into Mr T Repair Centre on Brentwood High Street and stole bags full of electronic devices. It wasn't until a member of staff went to open up the shop shortly before 9am that they realised the store had been burgled.

Marwa Bahri, the wife of shop owner Tounsi Bahri, says the incident has left her family shocked and forced her husband to start the business almost from scratch.

Speaking to EssexLive the 27-year-old from Chelmsford said: "Tounsi is still very excited about the shop, he tries his very best to make his business successful. But now we have to start almost from zero again. It's just terrible, it's all my husbands life savings, he worked so hard for all of that and people just come along and take everything."

Marwa described how the burglars gained entry to their neighbouring shop, a hair salon, by mistake.

She said: "They broke into the hair salon next door to us by accident, they tried to make a hole in the wall but they must have realised they wouldn't be able to get through the bricks so they went back outside and found our back door. It was a strong wooden doors, with three locks on it, but they broke into it with a metal thing they had in their hands."

According to local media aside from the salon wall and the phone repair shop's back door the burglars didn't cause further damage to the properties. The thieves got away with 65 to 75 "top of the range" smart phones and two tills, one of which had £3,000 cash in. A total of around £40,000 worth of stock was stolen, including an ipad mini and an iphone six belonging to their customers.

CCTV footage showed two people, wearing dark clothing and gloves with their faces covered, enter the shop and walk straight towards a glass display cabinet. After filling two sports holdalls full of the devices they left the shop through the back door, the same way they entered. It took the burglars just over 30 seconds to open the glass display cabinet fill their bags with the stolen goods and leave the shop.

Marwa said: "We are so glad that it was mainly new phones that were for sale that were stolen. But still those customers had photographs and memories on their devices they they have lost. Tounsi has contacted them and told them we will be compensating them in the next few days. It's not fair on them, it's not their fault and we want to keep our customers happy at the end of the day."

Marwa believes the people responsible pre-planned the burglary and, as a result, she says they will be tightening security to prevent it happening again.

Marwa remains optimistic that those responsible will be caught. She said: "I don't know how the people that did this can sleep at night. We will not let this affect us, we are going to be strong, and hopefully these guys will be caught and we will get justice."

Essex Police investigations remain ongoing in relation to the incident. A spokeswoman for the force also confirmed that no one has been arrested.


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