Wigan shopkeeper's despair over raids

A luckless Wigan shop owner has once again been the victim of anti-social behaviour just days after going public about the scourge of shoplifting.
The convenience storeThe convenience store
The convenience store

Offenders broke into a van belonging to Hemn Abdulla, who owns Ince Convenience Store, before attempting to make off with the vehicle some time overnight on Monday last week.

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Mr Abdulla thinks the thieves brought a key to get into the van but when that wouldn’t work they tried, unsuccessfully, to “hotwire” it.

The incident, which occurred on a car park behind his Warrington Road store, was just 48 hours after Mr Abdulla spoke to the press about offenders’ wrecking his business in the wake of a shoplifting incident when a man snatched a case of beer and vanished.

A furious Mr Abdulla has now painted an unflattering picture of the neighbourhood where his businesses are located and demanded more action against offenders from the authorities.

He said: “They seem to have brought their own key and broke the window of the driver’s side door.

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“They have then tried to wire it but didn’t succeed and then just left it like that. I am very angry about this. This part of town I call hell at the moment. I’ve seen things in Wigan that I’ve never seen before. It’s chaos and the police don’t respond quickly enough.

“Something needs to be done because people are committing crimes and getting away with it.”

Mr Abdulla took pictures showing the extent of damage to the vehicle, including broken glass on the floor nearby.

He discovered the attempted crime on Tuesday morning when he went to open the shop.

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This follows hard on the heels of the incident captured on CCTV when an offender raided the shop for alcohol without paying in a split-second attack.

Mr Abdulla, who also owns the Polish shop next door to the convenience store, said this was merely the latest in a fairly long string of similar petty crimes which had been blighting the store over the past couple of months.

But he is not alone, recently another convenience store on nearby Hardybutts was raided by three knife-wielding intruders who were chased off by the shopkeeper armed with a step ladder.