Windows were left smashed at a pair of charity shops that have been targetted in raids that were just three hours apart. Finn Macdiarmid reports.
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00:00Of all the places to be stolen from, a charity shop is the last place you might expect.
00:05But when Gillingham Street Angels store owner Neil Sharlick arrived to his shop at 3am to
00:09find a broken window and an empty till, he knew what had happened.
00:13Well it's even rare enough for a charity shop to be broken into, but it's rarer still for
00:17it to be broken into twice on the same day at different locations.
00:22And it didn't just happen at the Gillingham shop, but here at the Chatham store as well.
00:25As you can see this window has been replaced with wood since at 3am yesterday morning the
00:30thieves broke through the bottom part of it to gain access to the store and then steal
00:34from the tills.
00:35I went to the Raynham store to find out exactly what happened on the night at their Gillingham
00:40and Chatham locations.
00:41Me and a fellow member of staff go round the shops early in the morning and collect stock
00:45up that needs to be moved to other sites.
00:48We realised that a door that had been pushed open, thought this was a bit odd, then decided
00:52to look around the building, it's the old Argos store in Chatham, looked around and
00:56realised quite quickly they'd gone into various rooms, taken a till, taken costume jewellery
01:01and other items of not huge value, it's more the damage they've done to the property that's
01:07the inconvenience.
01:09Neil says it's extremely rare for a charity shop of all places to be stolen from, since
01:13the public backlash on whoever committed the crime would be that much worse, and since
01:17most of their stock is donated, they aren't often a common target.
01:21After looking at the cameras, Neil realised that at different times at each shop the tills
01:25were stolen from, but one thief also took a large bag of costume jewellery.
01:30Break-ins can also make it more difficult for those who work or volunteer here to feel
01:34safe.
01:35We went round the building and checked all the areas and it was quite scary to be honest
01:40because you don't know if someone's in the building or not, and obviously it was just
01:44me and Neil, so we've gone round, had a look, found out where they've come in, where they've
01:48gone back out, what they've taken, and it is quite a scary thing to be honest.
01:53And it's quite rare isn't it, what was your reaction like, do you ever get this kind of
01:57thing normally?
01:58No, it's very rare, no we don't normally, especially not two in one night, it's bad.
02:03The volunteers and the staff say they may need to up their security for the future,
02:07but with 24 hour cameras they aren't exactly sure what more they can do, but they do know
02:12that they can't afford for it to happen again.
02:14Finn McDermid for KMTV in Medway.