A SHOP owner has told of her horror after ram raiders smashed their way into her store and stole a cash machine.Thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to the Mace Store in Tudor Parade, Jaywick, during the raid.

By Annie Davidson

A SHOP owner has told of her horror after ram raiders smashed their way into her store and stole a cash machine.

Thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to the Mace Store in Tudor Parade, Jaywick, during the raid.

Anne Hook, who has run the shop with her daughters Melanie and Sharon Harwood-Bee for seven years, said its frontage had been destroyed and a lot of stock damaged in the incident.

The raiders struck at 2.15am on Saturday and drove a Daihatsu 4x4 through the front of the shop.

The vehicle had been stolen from Kirby Road, Walton, at about midnight the same night.

The cash machine was pulled from the building after chains were attached to it and loaded into either a white Ford Sierra or a black Cavalier-type vehicle.

Police said a number of men wearing black balaclavas were involved in the raid and made off in the Ford or Cavalier-type vehicle, leaving the Daihatsu behind.

Police pursued the get-away vehicles but lost them in the St Osyth area. It is not known how much money was in the cash machine when it was taken.

The Ford Sierra, registration F901 YNV, had been stolen from March in Cambridgeshire on January 5. It was found abandoned in Cambridgeshire on Saturday afternoon.

Mrs Hook, who lives on the Tudor Estate in Jaywick, said the replacement frontage would cost about £7,200.

She was forced to close the shop during the weekend as it was too badly damaged to open.

She said: "I am not feeling all that good. Something like this feels like a real blow to you personally.

"We are a small shop and it is a nice community, we have lots of regular customers who we have a good rapport with and it feels like we are letting them down.

"But we can't possibly open with the shop like this."

Mrs Hook added: "It feels like being burgled at home - you feel violated."

She and her daughters spent five hours at the store in the early hours of Saturday morning clearing up the mess left by the raid.

Mrs Hook said the store had been broken into four or five times in the seven years she had been running it but usually alcohol and cigarettes were taken and this was the first ram-raid.

Police have appealed for anyone with information or anyone who saw the Daihatsu after it was stolen or the Ford and Cavalier-type cars after the raid to contact Clacton CID on 01255 221312.