Broken into

We were broken into today, in Sainsbury's car park in Halifax. This photo was taken when we first parked the van before going into the store. We're still very new to doing things with this van and this was the first time we parked it. We were quite pleased and proud that we'd been able to get the wheels entirely within a marked out space, so I turned around and took this photo with my iPhone as we were walking away.

About 40 minutes later we returned. I tried to open the passenger side door of the cab but my key wouldn't go in. John tried the driver's door and that was OK. Once inside, and putting away the shopping I noticed things on the bench that I thought had fallen out of the lockers. Gradually it dawned on me that we had not been remiss in closing cupboard and locker doors, but they'd been opened by someone. The picture shows how the locker doors were held in the up position. This wouldn't have happened by driving over a big bump.

The good news: as far as we could tell at the time nothing was missing. If we'd been on holiday we'd have been carrying more valuable things, such as cameras and computers. We rang the police and it was arranged that we'd go home and an officer would visit us there. As we arrived home John took a call on his mobile from Lowdhams, the dealer who sold us the van. They had heard from a man who had found the briefcase style bag, full of manuals, service history, and other paperwork, that had been given to us when we bought the van. So, it looks like they took the bag and then disposed of it when they realised it didn't contain a laptop or some such thing.

Police called, took information and later got back to us with a crime number. They will request that the Scene of Crime lot come and have a look, but are not hopeful that they will as they'll not be likely to get good prints and DNA evidence is unlikely to be present.

John will pick up the bag tomorrow and we'll see if it contains everything it should. We'll then have to get the lock mended and check out the alarm system, which it seems we may have been using incorrectly. (Chris)