TOOLS worth £80,000 have been stolen from a garage in Christchurch in a well organised raid.

The thieves, wearing dark glasses and baseball caps, cut through 16 foot high security fencing and a garage lock at the unit in Wilverley Road in the early hours of Saturday, August 20.

They spent two hours looting CK Autos and Auto Miles, which share the building, taking customised Snap-on tools, tool chests and machines, moving cars around as they needed.

It is believed they loaded their haul onto a 3.5 tonne Ford Luton van taken from nearby Purewell Electrical the same night, as white goods stored on the vehicle for the morning delivery were found dumped outside the garage in the rain.

CK Autos owner Christian Kift, 42, said: “They took anything they thought they could make money from.

“The main thing was my tool box. It took me 25 years to build up, within a few hours it’s all gone.

“We are insured but you how do you place a value on that. Some of those tools you can’t buy anymore.

“My father was a mechanic and I worked at his garage in Christchurch when I was young. Some of the tools he gave me were in there.

“They left the rubbish stuff, they knew what they were doing.”

Mr Kift said he believed five men had been involved in the raid. He is urging other business owners to review their security.

“These people are out there, so other garages and businesses might want to upgrade this or that,” he said.

“We are all trying to make a living, people should put a bit of extra security in place.”

The van has since been recovered in the West Midlands. It is believed the thieves used a key reading device to access have a blank made so they could drive it.

Ed Griffiths, operations manager at Purewell Electrical, said: “It seems our vehicle was targeted as they needed something to put a lot of heavy tools in.

“It is immensely inconvenient but we are making it work. Our customers have been very understanding.”

He said the white goods dumped at the scene had been written off as they were left out in the rain.

Dorset Police is investigating the raid.