Daylight raid on Rainham store sees gang steal �10,000

Crooks stole �10,000 from a Rainham store on Tuesday, despite being chased by brave staff.

At around midday, four people entered the M&Q Venture store in Upminster Road South around midday, and asked for a variety of different services from staff.

They then made off with the cash from the business’ Western Union money exchanges.

Owner Syan Tullis said: “They had planned it. They all came in and one wanted to do a Western Union transfer, another wanted to do a fax, another man stood in front of me, and a lady just ran past into the office and took a bag with my money in.

“A member of staff and I ran after them, they got into a green car but they got away.”

She said: “We have images of them on my CCTV, but we couldn’t catch the number plate and we don’t have CCTV in the village so we couldn’t get hold of that either.”

She added that the group had also been in the store on Monday.

Cllr Jeff Tucker (Independent Residents’ Group, Rainham and Wennington), chairman of the Rainham Village shopkeepers’ association, said: “I’ve been telling the council for years about the need for CCTV in the village – all other town centres have it apart from Rainham.”

Cllr Lesley Kelly, Havering Councl’s cabinet member for public protection, said: “This is a very low crime area and with very tight budgets it is not a priority to put CCTV in the area.”

The thieves are described as two men and two women, one woman of Asian appearance and the others of North African appearance.

Anyone with information about the crime should call police at Romford on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.