A LOCKERLEY village shop was broken into in the middle of the night whilst the owners were stuck in an airport and watched over Facetime.

Lockerley Green Stores, in Romsey, was forced to close for most of Wednesday, August 31 following a break in on Tuesday night.

The alarm was triggered after midnight, August 31 after a group of raiders pulled up in a four by four outside the shop in Lockerley Green.

Shop owners Eve and Phil Wootton should have been home but were delayed seven hours in returning to the UK after a holiday in Crete.

The couple’s granddaughter, Meela, lives opposite the shop and was already anxious due to her family’s delay. Meela facetimed her grandparents as soon as she heard the shop alarm go off in the middle of the night.

The shop owners instructed their granddaughter to stay put and not go over whilst they watched the break in over Facebook.

Eve said: “I felt helpless because I could have shouted or seen somebody, but it is what it is. I had a fantastic holiday, why did they have to go and ruin it?

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“Initially, we thought it might have just been that something had fallen off a shelf but then we saw this four by four pull up and there was one guy sat in there driving it and two jumped out and went round the back and wrenched open the garage door but there was nothing in there.

“Then they came upstairs to my flat, sort of looked, and went straight back down. So then they broke open the doors on the side which is where we get the orders through - double doors.

“They didn’t put any lights on, so they obviously knew the lay out of the shop. Within seven minutes they had emptied the gantry of cigarettes, ripped both tills out and broke the lock on the kitchen door and then were gone again.”

Along with cigarettes, the raiders stole all the tobacco and vapes, emptied a bin over the floor, knocked over a charity box and ripped out the till wires to remove the drawers.

On Wednesday, August 31 afternoon a woman from Ampfield rang the shop to say that her gardener had found both the drawers in her garden on Wednesday morning.

Eve added: “It was a bit of a shock sat in Heraklion Airport, watching it all happen and there was nothing I could do about it.

“We’ve got CCTV and we have got a bit of one of them, a boy with a jacket with two big yellow squares on the front. But because they never turned any lights on and the shop is so dark we haven’t really got anything to show.”

The police were alerted by the alarm and missed the raiders by approximately six minutes. Four police vehicles arrived at the scene but according to the shop owners are yet to find anything.

A spokeman from Hampshire Constabulary said: "Officers are investigating after we were called to a report of a burglary at Lockerley Green Stores in Romsey at 12.21am on Wednesday, 31 August. Items including cigarettes , tobacco, electronic cigarettes and a till was stolen. Officers attended. Enquiries are ongoing.

"Anyone who was in the area at the time and witnessed anything suspicious or has any private CCTV or dash-cam footage is asked to  get in touch. You can do this by calling 101 or online at https://www.hampshire.police.uk/tua/tell-us-about/cor/tell-us-about-existing-case-report/ quoting reference 44220353927."

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The local convenience store had to close until 4pm on Wednesday, August 31 to allow time for the forensics team. Since the raiders didn’t smash or break anything, the clean up process has been minimal allowing business to resume relatively quickly.

The shop owner said: “It’s the cleanest break in we’ve ever had. This is the fourth we’ve had in twenty years. Other previous ones they’ve made a hell of a mess. But these people knew exactly what they wanted.”

Eve and her husband Phil, the shop manager, have been running the Budgens convenience store in Lockerley Green for 23 years.