Ram-raiders strike four times in Cambridgeshire in one week, stealing cash machines, destroying shop front and injuring an officer
Cambridge’s MP has called for more resources to help Cambridgeshire police after ram-raiders struck four times in a week, stealing cash machines, ripping the front off stores and leaving one police officer injured.
The force has yet to make any arrests following the incidents and said that while the offences were similar, links between them had yet to be proven.
The incidents began on January 6 at Nisa in Chatteris. Police were called at 10.48pm after ram-raiders destroyed the front of the shop in Park Street and took a cash machine.
A few hours later, at 1.22am on January 7, officers were called after ram-raiders left major damage to the front of the Co-op in Milton Road, Cambridge.
Two more ram-raids followed in the early hours of January 12.
Thieves used a JCB low loader to smash into the Old Walsoken Post Office near Wisbech just before 1am and steal a cash machine. Rubble was left strewn across Kirkgate Street.
At 4.18am, the force was called out to another theft of a cash machine in progress at the Co-op store 27 miles away in Bentley Avenue, Yaxley.
“On attendance, the police car was rammed by the suspects as they made off. An officer received minor injuries,” a police spokesperson told the Cambridge Independent.
Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner called on the minister for crime and policing to help.
He has previously worked with Co-op shops and police in Cambridge after hearing “horror stories” about the level of assaults on staff.
He welcomed the government’s decision in December to heed calls to make assaulting shop workers an offence.
“Shopworkers In Cambridge have had a tough time in recent years,” he said. “They have faced organised shoplifting and threats of violence, and now they are facing organised ram raids. More needs to be done to tackle this crime, and the government must take immediate action to provide additional resources to Cambridgeshire police.”
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