Park Royal Post Office burgled

Thieves make hole in roof to steal over £25,000

Police would like to appeal for any potential witnesses to a burglary, which occurred at the Park Royal Post Office between 1130am on Sunday 14th November and 0600am on Monday 15th November 2004.

The premise is a small newsagents shop named MG PATEL, which incorporates a post office at the rear of the premises on 65 Park Royal Road. It faces ASDA and has an accountants one side of the premises and a bookmakers the other side.

Police were called to the premises at 6am on Monday 15th November. They discovered the suspects had made a large hole in the roof and a ladder had been used to enter and exit. The suspects have broken into the secure post office area of the shop by smashing the door, they then proceeded to drill and cut open the secure safe. The suspects would have spent some considerable time and made a lot of noise during the incident at the post office in creating the hole to gain access to the post Office and gaining access to the safe.

They took approximately £25000 in cash and large quantity of stamps and postal orders from the safe plus approximately £2000 worth of cigarettes, £1000 worth of scratch cards and £300 worth of magazines from the newsagents.

The suspects also took the alarm off the wall at the premises, damaged the cctv cameras at the venue, stole the cctv security tape and exited the premises by using the ladder to get back through the hole that they had created.

Police had been called to the premises on Saturday Night 13th November 2004 at 23.30hrs after the alarm had been activated but they did not find anybody on the premises. Police contacted the registered keyholder who attended the address to confirm all was ok at the address and an alarm engineer attended and re-set the alarm. It is possible that the offenders may have attempted to gain access to the Post Office on this earlier occasion but were disturbed by the alarm.

Police are linking this incident to a burglary, which occurred at a storage facility on 63a Park Royal Road between the hours of 1pm on Sunday 31st October 2004 and 0930am on Monday 1st November 2004. During this offence the suspects have gained access via the rear of the premises at 63a Park Royal Road by cutting a hole through the mesh fence. They then broke a window at the rear of the premises and entered the premises. Once inside over £5000 worth of assorted men’s wear was stolen. The property stolen included woollen knitted jumpers, jeans, parka style jackets with fur-lined hoods, and shirts (various colours).

Police ask anyone with any information about either burglary or who may have been in the area around the time of either offence to contact DC Tariq Farooqi in the Safer homes Unit at Ealing Borough Police on 0208-246-9168 or alternatively Crimestoppers 0800-555-111.

November 19, 2004