Jewellery thieves raid Warwickshire Sims Vintage Antiques Centre in Wootton Wawen
THE owner of an antique shop in Wootton Wawen has been left devastated after a high-value burglary.
Phil Sims, of Sims Vintage Antiques Centre, said he reported the break-in, which happened in the early hours of last Thursday (27th February), to police and was now having to look at installing security measures “that no one should need
to install.”
The shop, on Pettiford Lane, is owned by Phil and his wife, Terri, who have had the business on the site for 12 years. In that time it has expanded into a bigger premises, a move that included a complete refit.
However following the break-in, Phil was left to pick up the pieces. He told the Herald items adding up to a considerable amount were taken. He wants to make people aware that these stolen items may now be on the market.
Phil said on Thursday: “We’ve never had a problem, unlike many antique centres which have been broken into many times during that time. We’ve always done pretty good, and we’ve avoided it. We’ve got as good security as we possibly could have.
“However, early this morning, that nice track record came to an end as we were broken into. So I spent the morning doing initial repairs to access and things like that to make the building safe and secure. Also, cleaning up a bit of mess and dealing with some very unhappy, sorry, very sad people who’ve had items stolen from our centre.
“The alarm was triggered one o’clock this morning, or there abouts and I came in this morning about half seven after my landlord had been on site and then the police were informed.
“So, it seems the crime officers have been out, and the police have taken the statement, and now it’s become a criminal investigation on their part.”
On the reason why he chose to reach out to the Herald about the incident, Phil said: “My purpose of putting this out there is to make people aware that there is a lot of stolen goods now on the market from a small independent business who supports lots of other independent businesses and traders.
“I’m just trying to highlight the impact this has had on a wider scale. It’s not just me. There are 50 other people who are going to be very insecure.
“We had all the security that we could possibly have within scientific reason, if that makes sense. But they were still in and out. They didn’t care about any of the goods they stole.
“They were just in and out, two-and-a-half minutes, faster than I could have probably logged on to my CCTV to see what was going on. I might have looked at it within an hour.”
The shop had already started the next steps following the break-in, as Phil added: “We are now going to the extreme of looking at installing security measures that nobody
should have to ever install. We know that doesn’t make us bulletproof, and they could still just drive a JCB through the front wall and still be in and out.”
A Warwickshire Police spokesperson said: “We were called at 5.47am [on 27th February] to a report of a burglary at a business premises on Stratford Road, Wootton Wawen. Damage was caused and jewellery was stolen.
“Enquiries are ongoing.”
Anyone with information can contact Warwickshire Police on 101 using incident number 50 of 27th February.
