Lone Burglar’s Saturday Morning Crime Spree Leaves a Trail of Shattered Glass Across Canterbury City Centre

Image: Cafe No 35/JP

A thief went on a 90-minute rampage Saturday morning, targeting business premises across the city centre.

Shocked workers arrived to find their shop fronts smashed in with the police already there, taping off the premises, with broken glass lining the doorways.

Standing outside Stag on St Margarets Street, 41-year-old head chef Michael Ratcliff from Cafe No 35 said: “I turned up and the door was smashed in.

“They’ve got into Weird Fish, they’ve got into ours, and they’ve attempted to get into Stag and Tiny Tims, and apparently a fish and chip shop in Burgate.”

Head Chef Michael Ratcliff stood across the road from where he works at Cafe No 35/JP

Outside the doors of Stag and Cafe No 35, Marlow Arcade, and St Margaret’s Street/JP

The owner of Cafe No 35, Anna Carpenter, 54, had to drive back to Canterbury from Aldershot where she was spending the weekend, after getting a phone call from a staff member to come back.

“This is a huge blow,” she said.

“We are still very new and could do without something like this,” saying that Saturdays are their busiest day.

“We rely on Saturdays to pay the staff. I’ve easily lost £500 just now, and if we don’t open later, it could be over £1,000.

“I put everything into this business: my money, my heart, and my soul; the staff are incredible.”

Anna Carpenter, owner of Cafe No 35/JP

Inside Cafe No 35, clearing the broken glass/JP

Nothing was taken and the offender cut himself on broken glass, which Anna thinks could help identify him, saying: “I have CCTV upstairs so I’ll have footage of it.”

Due to previous attempts by a Romanian woman to break into the upstairs office, Café No 35 had locks placed on all the doors, even the toilet, which meant the thief could not break into the first-floor office safe.

“We had an intruder on Christmas Eve, we were locking up and I heard a noise upstairs,” said Anna. “So Michael went up and found a little Romanian woman hiding in a cupboard, we escorted her out of the building and called the police.

“She’s been in on five more occasions, even turning off the CCTV cameras upstairs.

“The police know all about it and she is being prosecuted, because she’s done a few places, stealing mobile phones, purses, petty crimes.”

Believing in the positive, Anna said that if it hadn’t been for the previous intruder the thief could have got upstairs and broken into the safe, which had an amount of money.

Donna Mckenzie with the police outside Weird Fish/JP

Donna McKenzie, 43, the manager of Weird Fish in the Marlow Arcade, had just driven in from Dover.

“As I was coming up and getting closer, and saw this, I thought that’s my shop,” saying the thief had tried to get in the till, but nothing of value was taken.

Two tills with keys left in were also emptied in Seafarer, the new fish and chip shop in Burgate, next to the Cathedral gates, losing £300.

Owner Metin Davudovic, 48, originally from Turkey said: “Friday was our opening day, and Saturday we were broken into.

“In the middle of town, this is shocking,” he said, especially next door to the cathedral gates which usually have a police presence.

He said the least they can do is have better security for the city centre, especially as business rates are so high.

Mr Davudovic has lived in the UK for over 30 years and also has a Seafarer in Broadstairs.

Seafarer, the fish and chip shop on Burgate/JP

Inside Seafarer/JP

Kent police were contacted at 7:50am on Saturday 1 April 2023, after a crime spree lasting between 6:20 and 7:50am.

The police describe the thief as a white man, around 5ft 10ins tall, wearing a black hooded top with high-visibility strips on the cuffs, black trousers, and carrying a white bag.

CCTV and forensic analysis have been carried out and enquiries are ongoing to locate the offender.

Anyone with information is urged to call Kent Police on 01843 222289, quoting reference 46/58844/23.