Community rally together after Oxfordshire shop hit by second break-in
Five masked men armed with sledgehammers broke into the shop on Boxing Day
A local community are rallying together support a shop in Oxfordshire after they’ve been hit by a second break-in within three months.
In the early hours of Thursday 26th December, a group of five masked men armed with sledgehammers robbed Minster Lovell Spar in Witney.
Owner, Ian Lewis said: “The comments and the support from the community has been outstanding.”
Locals took to Facebook to show their support and appreciation, with one woman commenting: “Midst of all that devastation, worry and mess, you’ve still managed to deliver our newspaper.
“That sums up what incredible people you are.”
Others in the area offered to gather a team of volunteers to help clean up the mess.
The post on Facebook received over 250 comments and 1,000 reactions.
“Blood, sweat and lots of tears”
The group of masked men stole the cash machine situated at the back of the shop, smashed the doors and took away with a number of items.
This morning, Mr Lewis tells us they’ve been able to reopen but says, it’s taken “some blood, sweat and lots of tears”.
He added: “I never knew that broken glass and egg yolk is such a difficult thing to get off a shop floor, but we worked until 7 o’clock last night and we’ll have an entrance by the side-door which hopefully the customers can find, and we can start trading back to where we were.”
Ian’s parents, also owners of the shop, were sleeping upstairs at the time of the break-in, when they heard the door being smashed down.
Mr Lewis said: "My mum doesn't sleep very well since anymore."
This is the second break in since September, Mr Lewis says, “I just can’t believe that it’s happened again, it was real déjà vu getting the call in the morning and the voicemail left by my dad. It was just horrific and something that will live with me for quite some time.”
He added the damage will likely “run into the tens of thousands” of pounds, as they need to replace stock loss, refrigeration repairs, chiller doors and the front automatic doors.
The independently run businesses say Thames Valley Police are investigating.