Shopping Centre plundered in late night break-in

It took less than twenty minutes for a gang of thieves to break into six retail units in Castlepollard's Shopping Centre in the early hours of Thursday morning of last week.They swiftly targeted tills for money left on the premises, stealing discovered cash but leaving stock behind and creating no further damage except what was done when they forced the front doors.The gang did not break into the anchor tenant of the shopping centre, Tesco Express. Instead it targeted the smaller, family run businesses that make up the rest of the retail centre on the Oldcastle Road, just 500 metres from the town centre.The stores targeted by the gang were Buddy Cadillacs, which is set to open soon, the furniture store Lakeshore Home Store owned by well-known football trainer Marius Reilly; Partners Dry Cleaners, a firm which also has premises in Mullingar; award winning craft butcher Simon Lowndes, who moved his business from The Square out to the new shopping centre; and the Euro Shop."They were professionals. They arrived, they parked up out of sight of the CCTV cameras, they popped the doors and opened the back doors for the rest of the gang to come in," one of the shop keepers, who had reviewed his own CCTV footage, told the Westmeath Examiner."You can see on the CCTV footage from inside the shop that they are wearing masks - like balaclavas - and latex gloves. One of them is as big as a door."Marius Reilly believes that it is a tremendous blow to the shop keepers in already difficult times: "Everyone here is just doing their best to make a living. We are all small family run businesses and we will struggle to cover the losses. It is a small consolation that they did not destroy the inside of the shops or damage any of the stock, so we could at least get back to trading on Thursday," said Marius.Simon Lowndes praised the speedy response of the Gardaí: "I arrived into work and saw the smallest chink and I thought to myself, for a split second, 'Did I forgot to lock up the shop last night?' But I knew that I would never forget and that I had been broken into and I called the Gardaí and they were here straight away."They have taken the CCTV footage from inside the stores, from outside, and from other local businesses in the town."I do not think it was anyone local that did this to us."I think the fact they broke into Buddy Cadillacs shows they didn't know it wasn't open yet," said Simon.The Gardai had increased their visibility in the area following a series of house breaks during working hours at the beginning of the summer.The local community has noticed an increased number of squad cars patrolling the area and a greater number of checkpoints in the area."This is in response to a series of break-ins into homes in the locality between the hours on nine to five. It is an effective measure borne out by zero break-ins of this type since the increased garda visibility," explained a Garda spokesperson based in Castlepollard."This type of break-in is different and we appeal to the public to come forward with any information, especially if they saw something suspicious or were in the area between 1 and 3am, in the early hours of Thursday morning," said the spokesperson.Anyone with information can contact the Gardai at Castlepollard on 044 9661112