Thieves steal 70 Christmas trees and specialist equipment from shop in Sale

More than 70 Christmas trees were stolen from a shop in Sale in the run-up to Christmas.

The thieves struck at 10.30pm and made three trips to steal the trees along with specialist equipment.

Shop owner Paul Robinson was shocked the next day to find his shop robbed and his machines missing.

He said: “They must live close-by as in 20 minutes they had to unlock the van and load it as well.

“The biggest loss to us was the milling machines, which took us two days to source into the UK. It cost us £2,500 for the replacement.

“We have been trading here for 35 years and never had a theft up until now.”

The police have gone through the CCTV footage but the perpetrators had scarves on.

Mr Robinson said: “The police told me that unless there is a clear picture of anybody who did it, the evidence won’t stand up in court.”

Police also found some tools used by the perpetrators to enter the store, but since they were old it was hard to get a fingerprint from it.

Mr Robinson added: “We have spent too much time on this and we are just moving on. We added extra security, we’ve put in alarms.

“So if they come in again, the alarms will alert us. We had to pay a lot for this added security.

“Thankfully, we were able to manage and not let anyone down. Everybody got the trees they wanted despite the incident.”

Mr Robinson does not believe anybody other than another Christmas tree seller would have any use for the trees or specialist equipment.

“There is nothing much we can do now. We just want everybody to know that we are up and running,” he said.