Another LOROS Hospice shop has been targeted by thieves, making this the sixth incident of its kind in just two months.
The charity’s Furniture Shop, in Uppingham Road, Leicester, was broken into last night, with thieves ransacking the entire place before taking a safe containing £1,000 and causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.
The incident comes just weeks after five of the Hospice’s other shops were targeted in just a matter of days. LOROS Trading Manager, Jonathan Capewell said: “It’s absolutely devastating, especially for the volunteers who discovered the mess when they arrived for work this morning.
“The whole place was ransacked; the back-office computer had even been thrown across the room.
“Not only did they take the safe, they took all of the LOROS scratch cards that were in the shop too.”
Jonathan said that the thieves had left one of their drills they used to remove the safe still plugged in to the shop’s mains.
“The thing is, this particular shop has metal shutters covering every window when it’s closed but still, those responsible, managed to climb onto the roof and get into the first floor by smashing their way through the fire escape door,” he added.
Police came out immediately this morning and the shop was eventually able to open again, once the mess had been cleared up.
Meanwhile, the front window of the LOROS Shop, in Biggin Street, Loughborough, was also smashed last night, which will cost the Hospice around £3,000 to repair.
“We’re not sure whether the Biggin Street shop was an attempted break-in, or was the result of people having a bit too much to drink; what we do know is, all of this is going to cost LOROS thousands of pounds which could have been spent caring for terminally ill people,” said Jonathan.
If you have any information on the break-in, or saw anything suspicious in the Uppingham Road area of Leicester area last night, please contact Leicestershire Police on 101.
