Thieves smash window in sixth raid on Eastbourne church

Thieves smashed a window of St Elisabeth’s Church, in Victoria Drive, and broke in on Friday night (January 6) – taking a gift for a family whose house had been badly damaged in a fire.

Also stolen was youth club equipment, including a black and white electric guitar, an electric drum kit module, and a bass amp.

Church manager Mandy Mulford arrived at the scene on Saturday morning.

She said, “This is the sixth time this has happened in four months.

“Without CCTV, there’s nothing police can do, but we can’t afford it.

“The first time this happened was horrible but it’s happened multiple times now.

“It all seems a bit too familiar, they knew where everything was.”

“we’re not a big church, we can’t afford to keep replacing broken windows and replacing stolen items.

“We already need work doing on the building.”

Mrs Mulford added, “We are just doing our bit in the community.

“We want to help kids and give them a safe place to hang out and get them off the streets.

“Whoever did this please bring back our stuff and leave us alone.”

A spokesperson for Sussex Police said, “Police have been informed of a break-in at St Elisabeth’s Church, in which windows were broken to get in.

“An electric guitar worth £250 and a loudspeaker worth £120 were reported to have been stolen.

“The theft is thought to have occurred between 6pm on Friday (January 6) and 9.15am on Saturday (January 7).”

Anyone who saw or heard anything suspicious is asked to email [email protected] or phone 101, quoting serial 0321 of 07/01.