A FAMILY in Malvern had an unwelcome wake-up call as thieves broke into their shop.

Sarah and Rakesh Kumar were woken up at around 2am by two thieves who broke into their shop.

The pair were spotted on CCTV looking at the front of Eversley Stores in Worcester Road, shortly beforehand, and cameras inside the store captured the moment they forced their way in.

The thieves used a crowbar to pry open the door after smashing the bolts, but were only able to steal a small amount of cash before Mr and Mrs Kumar came in.

Mrs Kumar said: “When we heard the alarm go off, we initially thought it was a false alarm and so we went down to check what it was and they ran off.

“Fortunately, because we live here we were able to get down so quickly they were only here for about 40 seconds.

“Because of that, they weren’t able to clear out the cigarette gantries, which is what these kind of thieves usually do because they can sell them on and they won’t weigh them down when they are trying to escape.

“We were really lucky that the security we have on the shop worked and worked so well.”

Police officers were at the shop within 10 minutes of the break-in and Mrs Kumar praised their response, saying: “It was very reassuring that the police were here so quickly. “Considering they had a crowbar, if they had been violent then we could have been in real danger.

“The officer who came explained that it is likely a group of thieves from outside the area and that Malvern is a real target because there are lots of older people here and it is quite affluent.

“It has been a real wake-up call for us and we have increased our security to hopefully ward off anyone who might try again.

“We hope that our experience will prompt other shops in the area to think about increasing their security.

“It is a shame really as they could have earned more than what they stole by just doing an honest day’s work instead.”

CCTV footage from outside the shop shows that the thieves spent around 45 minutes outside working out how to get in.

Mr and Mrs Kumar passed on the images to the police in the hope that they could identify the two men, whose car was also filmed parked across the street.

Anyone with information on the theft, which happened on Sunday, May 19, can contact West Mercia Police on 101 quoting incident number 00825 190 519.