CRIMINALS escaped empty-handed after smashing a stolen JCB into the Bucks Horn Oak service station in the early hours of Monday morning last week – the latest in a series of cash point raids across East Hampshire in the past six months.

Hampshire Constabulary confirmed an attempt was made to steal an external ATM from the Gulf garage forecourt, on the A325 Bordon Road opposite Alice Holt Forest, using a JCB at 2.25am.

The vehicle had been stolen from nearby Garden Style Plant Centre, also on the A325, shortly before the incident.

In the early hours of February 14, just over the Surrey border, the Co-op in Rowledge was also targeted for the third time in just over two years, causing extensive damage to the building.

The Co-op raid took place between 4am and 5am and is thought that the thieves were frightened off by residents coming to see what the noise was about, before having a chance to steal anything.

A Hampshire Police spokesman said about the Gulf garage raid: “Extensive damage was caused to the front of the shop and the ATM, but it appears nothing was stolen.”

The service station was the target of another botched ram raid in August – on the same night as another failed break in at Liphook Post Office.

The criminals used a silver 4x4 to smash into the Gulf service station between 3.30am and 4am, leaving a hefty hole in the wall of a storeroom, but were unable to extract the garage’s safe and escaped empty handed.

A few minutes later, at around 4.15am, would-be thieves turned up in Liphook and smashed into the side of the village’s Co-op and post office.

Again they left a large hole in the wall of the building, but due to the rubble burying the safe, the perpetrators once more took nothing and drove off down Headley Road.

Police later discovered an abandoned Mitsubishi 4x4 thought to have been used in both crimes in woods at Longmoor Army Camp.

Two further similar incidents occurred in the days after the botched raids. A forklift truck was used to plough into the Hen and Chicken service station on the A31 north of Alton.

The forklift used to remove the cash machine was left at the scene with raiders making off in another vehicle.

And criminals smashed into the Aldi store, in Mill Lane, Alton, using a Land Rover Defender, to attempt to remove the cash machine.

Last month, a telehandler tractor was stolen from Mayfair Farm Riding Stables, in Churt, in the early hours of January 28, and used in a ram raid on a cash point three miles away at the Spar store in Lindford, at just after 2.20am.

Part of the store’s wall was smashed and the ATM was pulled out of the building. The cash machine, installed less than a week beforehand, was driven away on the back of a dark-coloured pick-up vehicle. Repair costs are likely to cost thousands of pounds.

It is believed ATMs typically contain about £30,000 when full.

The cash machine at Haslemere Station, was damaged on Christmas Eve, with thieves using a stolen JCB to plough into the building while targeting the ATM machine.

Cash machines at another Co-op supermarket in Wrecclesham, as well as Waitrose in Farnham, have also been targeted by ram-raiders in recent months.

While police have not officially linked the incidents, they have appealed for witnesses to call 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.