Serial ram-raider? Cheap booze stolen in second ram-raid attack on off-licence chain Hartleys - this time in Ashtead

Champagne, whiskey and vodka were taken from Hartleys in Craddocks Avenue, Ashtead, by a thief who smashed a car into the front of the shop and made off with the bottles. The attack comes just over a week after another shop in the booze chain in Banstead suffered the same fate.

From this morning: Car smashes into off-licence in second alcohol ram-raid in two weeks

Nov 24: Grand theft auto: Thief uses Porsche Cayenne to ram-raid off-licence - then does a celebration lap of Banstead High Street

A car - which Surrey Police believe to be a 4x4 - crashed through the front door of the shop at about 4.30am this morning, destroying the shop front and leaving shards of glass littering the floor.

Hartleys in Craddocks Avenue, Ashtead after the ram-raid attack in the early hours of this morning

Another Hartleys store in High Street, Banstead, was burgled at around 4.45am on Monday, November 23 by a thief who stole a £60,000 Porsche Cayenne, smashed the car through the front door, and made off with just "a few bottles of champagne".

The manager Andy Farrington, 25, from Tadworth said he was gutted when he was called to the shop by the police this morning.

Andy Farrington, 25, manager of Hartleys in Ashtead was gutted when he discovered the damage caused by the attack

He arrived at the off-licence at about 5.25am to find the front door caved in, loose shards of glass hanging precariously from the shop front’s upper windows, and the main windows shattered.

He said: "I’m absolutely gutted. Even when it isn’t your shop, you take pride in it because you’re running it, and you feel like it’s yours.

"You make of it what you can, and you treat it as your own."

The doorframe of Hartleys off-licence in Craddocks Avenue, Ashtead was removed after a thief smashed its glass panels during a ram-raid attack this morning

Mr Farrington said he had not had a chance to count how much had been taken because of a forensic investigation taking place.

But he believed only relatively cheap bottles of champagne, whisky, and vodka were taken, and that more expensive cases of wine were untouched.

As he served customers from behind police tape, and laughed off wry jokes from passing friends - "forgot your keys this morning, did you?" - Mr Farrington said he was confident Hartleys would resume business soon.

He said: "It won’t take too long to get it back though.

"We’ll be back up and running 10 to nine, seven days a week."

Broken bottles littered the floor of Hartleys off-licence in Ashtead this morning

David Jones, 55, from Craddocks Avenue, Ashtead, is manager of Ashtead Interiors next door to Hartleys.

He said he was shocked, but was not worried about a similar raid on his own store.

He said: "It is just a bit of a shock for a quiet town like Ashtead.

"I thought there was hardly anything that had been stolen by the look of it.

"It’s madness, really. It can happen all over the world."

The inside of Hartleys this morning

Christopher Ranger, 52, from Newton Road, Ashtead, is a shop assistant at Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation.

He said: "It does make you wonder why they have gone to all this effort for so little gain.

"It was a bit of a surprise when I came into work - you don’t expect it in a quiet place like Ashtead.

"But the main thing is that no one was hurt."

A fire crew from Epsom fire station were called to the shop just after 4.30am.

A spokesperson said: "We were there to make it safe because the door was in an unsafe position."

If you witnessed the incident or have any information please call Surrey Police on 101 quoting P15310615.

Or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.