WOULD-BE burglars tried to raid a post office by cutting their way in through the ceiling.

Udaya Pandith, leaseholder of Stanway Post Office Stores in London Road, received a call from his alarm company shortly before 3am yesterday saying there had been an intruder at the shop.

When Mr Pandith headed into the store, he found raiders had smashed through the door of a vacant flat which is above the post office, removed the floor boards and cut a small hole in the ceiling.

But the plaster and other debris falling onto the floor activated the motion sensor and set off the alarm.

The raiders fled empty handed.

Mr Pandith, 55, believes the burglars used a sharp piece of wire to cut the small hole rather than heavy duty tools.

He said: “I got the call to say my intruder alarm was going off.

“When I got in I saw things on the floor – some dust and other bits of mess and some wire which I think they used to cut through.

“I saw the door had been forced to the flat and they must have opened the floorboards. But the alarm is quite loud and it has motion and noise sensors, as soon as it even hears somebody talking it goes off.

Halstead Gazette:

Entry point - the burglars tried to get into the post office from above

“They had a plan. Otherwise, how would they know there was no-one in the flat and they could use it to get into the post office?

“They would have thought it was an easy way to access the post office and people may have assumed they were just builders.”

Mr Pandith has been running the post office for more than 14 years and said he had regularly been the victim of break-ins, but never using the ceiling.

He added: “It is very worrying.

“This is not the first time – I have had five or six different times when it is happened and we have had to replace the glass in the windows several times.

“But this is the first time anyone has tried to come in through the ceiling.

“It would have been terrible if they had got in.

“The only way they would have been able to get out is to smash through the doors. They would not have been able to get back up through the ceiling.”

“They could have alcohol, cigarettes and important items from the post office.”

Forensic teams were on the scene yesterday as an investigation into the burglary started. Anyone with information should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.