Broken CCTV missed vandal attack
His Abbey Carpets premises were vandalised for the second time in 18 months but he hoped the camera – which was just a few yards away high up on a wall – might have captured the incident.
But to his dismay he realised the camera, in Tewkesbury’s Church Street, was of no help.
He said: “On Saturday night, one of our shop windows was kicked in. We had hoped that it might have been caught on camera. There would have been a really good chance of getting some evidence off it.
“But we’ve looked at the camera today and yesterday and it’s facing the wall that it’s mounted on. Its main field of vision will just be the cream-coloured wall that it’s on.”
He said the camera had not moved and seemed not to be working. Now he faces having to pay almost £200 to get his window repaired, a year-and-a-half after yobs smashed it in a similar incident.
With trading conditions tough at the moment, he said it was money he can ill afford to spend. He added: “It’s never a good time to have your shop vandalised but at the moment there is a recession on, so unnecessary things like this means extra bills to pay.”
Tewkesbury Town Council admitted the camera was not working but said it would soon be up and running again.
Town clerk Pauline Clarke said the council’s five cameras in the centre would be upgraded in the next few weeks.
She said the borough council had finally granted planning permission for a replacement communications mast at the police station site in Barton Street and this would enable a new £22,000 system to be installed.
She said: “We’ve been waiting to get permission from the borough since the summer. Now that we’ve got it, we’re hoping to get the work done as soon as possible.”
She added the new system would produce crystal clear CCTV pictures and a previous problem of the cameras being affected by interference from other wireless users would be overcome.
Police want any witnesses to the vandalism to call them on 0845 090 1234.
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