A DEVASTATED Worcester shopkeeper awoke this morning to find his windows smashed and till drawer which contained £700 cash missing.

Thieves were caught on CCTV smashing the window of a convenience store in Wyld's Lane in the early hours of this morning.

Owner of Friends Malayali Asian Store, Dennis Matthews said: "I came to open up at around 8.15 this morning and the police were already here.

"The CCTV shows three men in their early twenties smashing the glass in the door to break into the shop. They got away with the till drawer and about £700 in notes and coins."

Mr Matthews said the three thieves first threw a brick at the window at around 3am, but didn't manage to gain entry. They then came back an hour later and threw two more bricks.

He said: "After they threw the two more bricks they climbed into the shop and that is when they stole the till drawer. They ran out the back of the shop, and left the doors wide open. You can see where they have got out as there is a trail of coins.

"It is really really gutting. We cannot open with the window how it is, and we will have to wait to get a new till. We are celebrating Eid on Friday, and so it is our busiest time.

"That and the fact business is slow due to the pandemic means we will really struggle."

The 45-year-old has owned the store on Cecil Road for 12 years and has had trouble like this before.

He said: "About six or seven years ago we stopped selling cigarettes completely. We just took the counter out. We were getting broken into a lot and people always seemed to target the cigarettes, so we just stopped selling them."

A spokesman for West Mercia Police said: "We received a call at around 7am from a member of the public concerning a break-in at a shop on Cecil Road, Worcester.

"The investigation is on-going, we are asking anyone that may have seen or heard anything over night or during the early hours of the morning (Tuesday 28 July) to report it on our website by clicking ‘tell us about’ using reference 00072 of 28072020."

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