THE owner of a charity shop has brand- ed the thugs that smashed her door while trying to break in as “cowards”.

Lorraine Barraclough, known as Loll, has been manager of the Oxfam shop in Witham for 29 years.

She was devastated to see someone had tried to break into the shop near the Newland Centre overnight on Sunday.

The mum has expressed her frustration by writing a note in response to the incident, which she has plastered on the shop window.

The note reads: “Congratulations for breaking our window – easy to destroy, much harder to build.

“Shame on you. This shop helps the disadvantaged and you do this and run away – cowards.

“We all pity you.”

She hopes it will raise awareness and prevent another incident in the future.

Mrs Barraclough, who also lives in Witham, said: “I came in on Monday morning and found the door had been smashed, using one of the big paving slabs that had been broken in two.

“I have got to have a new window put in the door, it’s a struggle for us to try and make money without having to deal with this.

“I haven’t got any words to describe how I am feeling at the moment.

“I have never had anything like this, we have had a couple of break ins around the back but nothing like this. It’s just the cost of it.

“It’s a toughened window so I don’t know how much it will cost to replace.”

Mrs Barraclough said she did not have much hope of finding the culprit as she was still waiting to hear back from the police, and was aware of a number of similar incidents at shops in the last few weeks.

She said: “We try to make money and you just wonder what these people get out of it.

“There’s no police about in Witham, somebody phoned the police for me and I said there’s no point because they don’t do anything. The amount of places that have had their windows smashed lately, I had to spend the whole morning cleaning it up.”

Anyone with information should call 101.