By Jenni DixonA GYM owner has offered a reward of up to £2,000 to help catch the person who drove a digger through the side wall of the building.Phoenix Health and Fitness gym in Beccles will reopen on Saturday, six days after the digger crash caused £50,000 damage.

By Jenni Dixon

A GYM owner has offered a reward of up to £2,000 to help catch the person who drove a digger through the side wall of the building.

Phoenix Health and Fitness gym in Beccles will reopen on Saturday, six days after the digger crash caused £50,000 damage.

Now gym owner Steven Cherry, 22, has put up the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person behind the attack on the former grocery store, which also houses a tanning salon.

“The area has all been blocked off and we're in the process of taking away the reception part of the tanning shop so we can open a whole gym facility on Saturday,” he said.

It has been one setback after another for Mr Cherry - he has been living in a hotel since his boiler burst and flooded his Lowestoft home - and for the tanning business, which was renamed Phoenix Tanning following two break-ins last year.

The salon, run by Pauline Devereux, is currently open for business as usual, but it was a different story six months ago when intruders stole the business safe, threw paint over the sunbeds and cut electrical cables.

Her husband, Rob, 57, a language teacher at Sir John Leman High School in the town, who helps with the business, said: “Every small business that has taken over the premises has left and we were hoping to break the jinx.”

Mr Cherry, who has spent the past five months building up the gym business, said: “There's no point in crying about it, though I do wonder what's going to happen next.”

It is believed the digger was taken from the nearby Ellough Industrial Estate and driven into the building in Ingate at about 3.30am on Sunday.

A Suffolk police spokeswoman said an investigation had been launched into the crash, but would not confirm if the two earlier burglaries were connected to it.

jenni.dixon@eadt.co.uk