CRIMINALS escaped empty handed after smashing a stolen JCB into a Bucks Horn

Oak service station last Monday morning - the latest in a series of ATM ram raids across East Hampshire in the past six months.

Hampshire Constabulary confirmed that an attempt was made to steal an ATM from the forecourt of the Gulf garage, on the A325, using a telehandler JCB at

2.25am. The vehicle had been stolen from nearby Garden Style Plant Centre

shortly before the incident.

A police spokesman said: “Extensive damage was caused to the front of the

shop and the ATM, but it appears nothing was stolen.”

Bucks Horn Oak service station was the target of another botched ram raid last

August - on the same night as another failed break in at Liphook post office.

On that previous occasion at Bucks Horn Oak, the criminals first used a silver

4x4 to smash into the Gulf service station between 3.30am and 4am, leaving a

hole, but they were unable to extract the garage’s safe and fled empty handed.

At around 4.15am, thieves turned up in Liphook and smashed into the side of the village’s Coop and post office. Again, they left a large hole in the wall of the building, but due to the rubble burying the safe they were to flee with nothing and drove off down Headley Road.

Police later discovered an abandoned Mitsubishi 4x4 at Longmoor Army Camp.

Two further similar incidents occurred just days after these two failed attempts. 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 escaping 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.

At the time, the Herald noted that this Aldi ram raid was the fourth in East

Hampshire within 10 days.

This year a telehandler tractor was stolen from Mayfair Farm Riding Stables,

Churt, in the early hours of January 28, and used in a ram raid on an ATM at Spar in Lindford.