THE manager of a Bournemouth charity shop has been left “heartbroken” after raiders targeted the shop and stole a safe.

The British Red Cross Shop in 252 Old Christchurch Road was broken into sometime overnight last Thursday.

Manager Linda Tramontini, 62, rushed to the shop to inspect the damage after assistant manager Russell Northage made her aware of the burglary on Friday morning when he arrived for work.

Linda said: "It's much worse than I thought, they've wrecked the computers, stolen the safe, designer wear that we've kept and there's just a mess everywhere."

Some of the items stolen included Ralph Lauren scarves that staff had been keeping to sell for Christmas presents as well as bags, designer jeans and coats.

Linda said: "It's really heartbreaking, I work so hard here, I can't tell you."

The shop has been located on Old Christchurch Road for nearly 30 years and Linda has been manager for more than eight years with a team of around nine volunteers.

Linda said: "We've lost money from the safe, solid silver napkin rings which we were going to send up to our head office to put on eBay, money from the counter, collection boxes. The amount of stock we've lost is unbelievable, it's so cruel."

"It's soul destroying, there have been lots of tears today," she added.

Linda had noticed the day before the burglary that the back door appeared to be jammed and she said the burglars must have realised this and instead climbed onto the roof and entered the premises through the toilet window.

She said: "They went through the whole of upstairs and have taken the safe which was screwed to the floor and tried to go through our filing cabinet which because of GDPR everyone's details have to be locked away."

Linda said emergency lighting had been left switched on at the shop overnight and could not understand how the burglars went unseen on the busy road.

She added: "They forget there's a lot of people who work here for nothing who have been here for years and they work really hard for me and other people here and we're gutted."

Dorset Police said said no one had been arrested and investigations were ongoing.