POLICE have seized some of the £15,000 worth of brand name clothes stolen from a Wantage menswear shop in a night time raid, staff have said.

The store manager at Dapper Street in Wantage Market Place said he understood police were now investigating a criminal gang suspected to be behind the burglary.

And a 16-year-old boy from Didcot arrested a day after the September 23 raid was released on Monday without charge and will face no action.

The store manager, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Oxford Mail: “I had the police turn up last week because they wanted to verify some information.

“They said they had found some of our stock at an address and wanted me to verify it, and just from the barcode I could tell the items were ours.

“The police said the address was linked to this gang and they have got some leads.”

He added: “When the police told us it was a gang we all just looked at each other and realised this wasn’t just a chance burglary.”

He said the address that was raided was not in Wantage but did not reveal exactly where it was.

The store manager said the work police were doing was “brilliant” and said all staff were keen to see the perpetrators charged.

He added: “If it stops someone else being hit like we were, we would want to see them brought to justice.”

Dapper Street director Stephen Graham said the shop’s CCTV footage showed men in hooded tops using a ladder to get into a first-floor window of the shop at about 4am.

He said two men climbed the ladder and then used a crowbar to force open the window of the 500-year-old building which used to house Badger’s Menswear.

Clothes stolen were high-price brands like Barbour, Superdry, Lyle and Scott and Fred Perry amounting to £15,000 or £20,000.

The men apparently did not go up or downstairs from the first floor and the company said no computers or cash were stolen.

Staff arrived at 8.30am to discover the break-in and found a ladder and crowbar on the ground in front of the shop.

The following day police forensics officers combed the shop looking for footprints and fingerprints.

The shop has said even if the clothes were recovered, it would not be able to sell them as they would be damaged.

The manager said: “Even some of the stock left in the shop was damaged beyond use because they’d walked over it with dirty shoes, then the stuff they stole they threw it out the window in the street.”

Thames Valley Police said it was still investigating but would not give any other details.