SHOP owner John Sheppard turned up to open his doors to customers for the first time at the store's new address - only to find burglars had broken in during the night.

The former president of Abingdon's Chamber of Commerce has now called on the town's CCTV camera system to be extended - claiming the raiders could have been caught red-handed.

Mr Sheppard worked all through the Bank Holiday weekend to re-locate his electrical goods store, Modulations Ltd, from Market Place to a vacant property in Wootton Road.

However, he turned up at the shop yesterday to find burglars had broken in through the roof and had stolen thousands of pounds of car radios, video cameras and a video editing station.

He said: "We've worked hard all weekend trying to complete the move in time and then I come in to find we've had visitors. "It is pretty distressing. It's been chaotic trying to sort things out and still open as planned."

He added: "We've had to do a lot of emergency repairs. They left the door to the store-room completely off the frame, and the roof's gone. The builders have been in to do emergency work."

Abingdon and Wantage's £338,500 CCTV system is now up and running in several areas of both town centres.

However, Mr Sheppard would like to see the scheme extended to out-of-town areas and has spoken to organisers of the system about setting up a camera in Wootton Road, as well as in Peachcroft.

He said: "They do have one camera that can be moved around. I think it's always been on the cards for the scheme to be extended - they just had to get the town centre covered first." There was some good news for Mr Sheppard later in the day - a stolen car was recovered in Abingdon town centre along with some of the stolen property.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.