A burgled travel agency was forced to turn away more than a dozen potential customers in the aftermath of the break-in, the owner has revealed.
Police are appealing for information after The Destination Hub in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was broken into in the early hours of Monday morning (January 27). Nothing was taken.
A large window was smashed and the office was ransacked, with every drawer searched, meaning a considerable clean-up operation was required.
“We’ve never experienced anything like this before. We’re just in a small town, so it was a bit of a shock,” said agency owner Caitlan Grime (pictured), who works alongside Ruby Hinnigan.
Grime had to turn away six would-be clients on Monday, while her father – who replaced the window – reported turning away a further 12.
“We missed out on quite a lot of business,” said Grime. “We don’t know if they’re going to come back to us or if they went somewhere else.”
The first she heard about the break-in was on Monday morning, when she woke to a missed call and a text message from the police.
“I wasn’t able to access the property until crime scene investigators came and looked everything over first,” she said.
She met the forensics team at 9am and got her first chance to survey the damage with her own eyes.
“The window at the front had been smashed. That was already boarded up when we got there,” she said.
“There was glass everywhere. It had shattered and gone into both rooms – it was on the desks and seating areas.”
A witness had phoned the police after watching the incident unfold, Grime said.
“They saw a white Transit van pull up and there were three men in it. Two stayed inside the van and one got out. He smashed the glass with a sledgehammer or something – we don’t know what – and then went inside.”
Outlining the scene she found on Monday, she said: “He had been through every drawer in the office and in the bathroom. He even went inside the electricity box.”
She added: “We don’t sell currency here and don’t have cash on site, but they had come for something. A witness heard one of them shout, ‘Have you got it?’ But they might have been asking about the tool they used to smash the window.”
Using CCTV footage, police were able to track the van’s movements in the five or 10 minutes following the break-in, said Grime, with footage showing the registration plates getting changed.
The cost of replacing the window came to about £140, Grime said. “It was more about the mess than the physical damage,” she added.
Sales during peaks so far have been strong for the Travel Trust Association member, which launched in 2022.
“We’ve had a really good month,” Grime said. “We’ve definitely increased our sales on last year. We’ve been selling a mix of everything – including long-haul and last-minute trips – and we’ve had a number of group bookings.”