IN SCENES reminiscent of a cut-price Oceans 12, a brazen burglar hacked a rat run through the doors and walls of a local Conservative club so he could make an elaborate crawl through the building evade their security system.

CCTV footage from Newtown Conservative Club in Poole's Ringwood Road shows the thief using a 12-inch chisel to remove lower sections of doors and partition walls.

Bournemouth Echo:

Unlike the Night Fox character in Ocean's 12, however, who dances above security lasers, the club thief crawled underneath the alarm sensors to raid the fruit machine in the members lounge bar.

A spokesman for the club said: "He got in at 4am on Friday and was in here for three hours, keeping low to avoid detection."

He said that staff watched CCTV footage in amazement as the thief only took fright when he accidentally triggered the alarm and then raced from the building.

"We believe he stood on a neighbouring bin to gain access to the door which he then made a hole in and got through," said the spokesman.

"Rather than open doors and trigger any alarms he then just uses the chisel to cut the holes to let him go in and crawls round the place."

The burglar escaped with the contents of two fruit machines plus the jar of staff tips.

Bournemouth Echo:

Staff then raced to clear up the premises before the arrival of a wedding party which had been booked in for later that day.

Dorset Police said they were called at 7.20am on Friday to reports of a break-in at the club.

"Offenders gained access to offices and damaged vending machines," they said. "The alarm was raised to staff at 6.50am and an investigation is underway. No arrests have been made."