A BAKER whose business was “ransacked” has raised concerns over the lack of police presence in his town.

Mike Penton runs the Cottage Loaf bakery in Fordingbridge, which was broken into between 6.30pm on November 14 and 3.45am on November 15.

A “substantial” amount of cash was stolen along with safes, which have been recovered.

Mr Penton said the thieves, who were caught on CCTV, “ransacked the whole place” and “smashed the till to pieces”.

He added: “I work seven days a week, I earn a living by working hard and you get people who decide come out for a couple of hours and steal it.”

After reporting the incident to police on 101, a forensic officer was sent out the following day but Mr Penton says he had to wait five days before being able to see a police officer.

He called 101 again after being given additional information and said: “While I was on the phone I said, ‘I haven’t seen a police officer and it’s been a long time’.”

He said the call handler told him commercial businesses were “treated differently” to domestic incidents and that “you probably won’t see anyone”. But when he questioned the comment the call was terminated.

It was not until three days after the call that community police officers came to see Mr Penton.

“I jokingly said to them, ‘you’ve just missed them by five days’,” he said. “It’s just awful, there are no resources. It is not their fault.”

He says he was told he could “self-investigate” the burglary, and went to nearby shops to see if they had any CCTV footage.

“I was wandering around on the Thursday morning thinking, why am I doing this, why am I having to self investigate?” said Mr Penton.

“I’ve got a business to run. I haven’t really got the time to self investigate.”

He said: “I do feel kind of vulnerable. If you haven’t got your own security system in place then that’s it really.

“They [the thieves] weren’t in a hurry, they were in here for a while.

“There are just no police around, it’s frustrating.”

Mr Penton says he would like to see a community CCTV system put in place in the town centre.

He added: “There is quite a lot of crime in Fordingbridge at the moment. You think they would have some sort of CCTV in the High Street or something like that.”

Police say enquires are ongoing, and anyone with information should call 101.

A Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: “All calls that come into our control room are risk assessed before a deployment decision is made. Factors such as if a crime is on-going, and whether there is an immediate threat to life can inform deployment decisions.

“The informant in this case was advised that different crimes are processed differently and that business crimes are dealt with through forensics and CCTV enquiries by the Resolution Centre.

The Resolution Centre enables us to better manage crimes where lines of enquiry have been identified but the risk is such that they do not require a response by frontline resources.”