![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordpress.satellite.mmu.ac.uk\/northernquota-old\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2019\/12\/cctv_footage_.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMore than 70 Christmas trees were stolen from a shop in Sale in the run-up to Christmas.<\/p>\n
The thieves struck at 10.30pm and made three trips to steal the trees along with specialist equipment.<\/p>\n
Shop owner Paul Robinson was shocked the next day to find his shop robbed and his machines missing.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThey must live close-by as in 20 minutes they had to unlock the van and load it as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest loss to us was the milling machines, which took us two days to source into the UK. It cost us \u00a32,500 for the replacement.<\/p>\n
“We have been trading here for 35 years and never had a theft up until now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The police have gone through the CCTV footage but the perpetrators had scarves on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson said: \u201cThe police told me that unless there is a clear picture of anybody who did it, the evidence won\u2019t stand up in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson added: \u201cWe have spent too much time on this and we are just moving on. We added extra security, we’ve put in alarms.<\/p>\n
“So if they come in again, the alarms will alert us. We had to pay a lot for this added security.<\/p>\n
“Thankfully, we were able to manage and not let anyone down. Everybody got the trees they wanted despite the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson does not believe anybody other than another Christmas tree seller would have any use for the trees or specialist equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing much we can do now. We just want everybody to know that we are up and running,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1338,"featured_media":4031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4972,1],"tags":[3666,3415],"class_list":["post-4033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorised","tag-christmas-trees","tag-thieves"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n