Criminals steal charity money in Lower Quinton pub raid

Criminals stole thousands of pounds of charity money during a raid on a Lower Quinton pub last week, hours after the businesses closed for the second lockdown.

The incident happened at the College Arms in the early hours of 5 November as a group of three burglars gained access through a window whilst landlady Tanya and her husband Jim slept upstairs.

Tanya said: “The first we knew about it was when my husband went downstairs in the morning and saw the door ajar and that the cupboard behind the bar had been broken into, we didn’t hear a thing.

“It all happened at around 2.10am, they must have been on the lookout for pubs on the last night before lockdown. We’d been very busy, you can see on the CCTV that they were only looking for money, they ignored all the spirits.

“We have been fundraising for Conrad Lewis’ 353 charity with a charity motorbike raffle, overall we think they got away with around £4,000-£5,000 and I would say the majority of that was for the charity.

“One of our customers rung us up to ask if we were OK after it happened and they’ve started a Go Fund Me webpage to help us, it’s makes me emotional that someone has thought to help us like that.”

Anyone with any information about the incident should call police on 101 quoting incident number 64 of 5 November.

To support the College Arms through the Go Fund Me webpage, visit www.gofundme.com and search for ‘Buy a round! Help save our College Arms’.