8:40 am, September 28, 2020
A dealership in Kettering has been left counting the cost after vandals struck and slashed all the tyres on 40 cars.
The criminals targeted Beddows Motor Company in Green Lane overnight between September 22 and 23, the Northamptonshire Telegraph reported.
The total cost to the family-run company has been put at £15,877.28. Beddows – which was established in 1971 as Ansa Motors and is an RAC Approved Dealer – also offers servicing and MOTs.
It was the entire stock on display that was hit, which means it can’t shift any of them until replacement tyres can be sorted.
Four vehicles had been kept locked away in storage nearby and were awaiting valeting, which Beddows is now looking to do as a matter of urgency.
It was among four places in Kettering that suffered vehicle damage – including a funeral directors and a 10-barrel brewery – with two vans, a car and two other vehicles also attacked.
Graffiti saying ‘Challenge completed #Slash’ was left at the funeral directors as well.
Mark Beddows, a partner in the dealership, told Car Dealer today (Sep 28) how sickened they had all been by the attack. ‘It just cripples you. You can’t move,’ he said.
‘It sickens you. The country is on its knees at the moment, nobody’s earning anything, we’re haemorrhaging money as a result of Covid, sales are diabolical and then you get this.’
He said he couldn’t understand the mentality of those responsible.
‘If somebody had stolen a wheel off a car you could understand that because there was a reason for it, but nobody’s gained anything out of this.
‘We’ve got a good reputation in the town, we don’t upset people, and then you face this, which has effectively put us out of business on the sales side of it at a time you can ill-afford it.’
He added that volunteers who had been customers and are in the security business had rallied round to install a 16-camera security system on Saturday (Sep 26) and wouldn’t accept any payment.
The dealership is still waiting for its insurers to assess the damage and see if they will class the attack as one malicious event or individual ones, the latter of which would be a disaster for it as regards excess.
Northamptonshire Police is appealing for information on 101.
Image courtesy of Beddows Motor Company
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