Salon owner finds till at bus stop after shop 'smashed into with brick'
A salon owner found her till at a bus stop after she was broken into for the second time. The owner of Beauty Box, Natasha Le, 27, told the ECHO how her shop, on Berry Street, in Liverpool city centre, was smashed into with a brick on Tuesday, November 12, for the second time this year.
Natasha, from Huyton, recalled how she was woken up by phone calls on both occasions telling her someone had launched a brick through the salon window to gain entry. She said: “The first time it happened was in March on Mother’s Day [earlier this year], we got woken up at 8am by someone ringing me to say the shop had been broken into. We ran down and saw that the door had been smashed in.
“They had taken the whole till. It looks like he smashed the door with a brick and took the till and done one. Me and another girl had a look around for the till afterwards, we walked up the alleyway, opened up a purple bin and the till was in there.”
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Natasha says the “same thing” happened again on Tuesday, earlier this week. She said: “It was basically the same thing this time. I got a phone call at around 10am from the police who were here [at the salon], they explained what had happened.
“It looks like they had thrown a brick through the door again and smashed everything in its way. They took the till and did one. But this time they had left the till at the bus stop on the street [Berry Street]. It was around 6am in the morning [the break in happened].”
Natasha has owned Beauty Box on Berry Street for seven years and claims they have “never had a problem” until now. She said: “CCTV doesn't stop them, we need shutters. We can replace everything in the shop but it's going to keep happening, the damage is going to be done.
“I worry that one morning we will wake up and the doors will be smashed in again. You just don’t expect it to happen so frequently, especially being here six years, for it to happen twice in one year, it makes you think, is it us who is the problem?
“I’ve grown up in Liverpool, I’ve grown up in Chinatown, I didn't know it was this unsafe. It's not nice to walk into on a morning, we spent the whole morning trying to clean as much as we can. We had to spend all night hammering wood over the door so that we could sleep. It's devastating.
“Seven years we have been here and it has never been a problem to worry about, the shop was safe. It's such a busy place so it's safe, there is always loads of people around because of the bars, so even in the middle of the night there are still people there.”
Natasha has set up a GoFundMe to help raise money towards getting shutters fitted at the shop, she hopes this can prevent the salon from being broken into again. You can donate to the GoFundMe page here.
A spokesperson for Merseyside Police said: "We are appealing for information following a reported burglary at a business in Liverpool city centre. We received a report on Tuesday 12 November that someone had broken Beauty Box, on Berry Street, overnight and an unknown quantity of cash had been taken.
"Inquiries are ongoing into the incident and if you have any information, please call 101 or DM @MerPolCC on social media, quoting reference number 24000958970. You can also call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111."