Staff at a Biggleswade clothing store are hoping to turn the frightening experience of a burglary into positive action by selling the recovered stock for charity.

On the Wire Clothing in Victoria Place was targeted by a burglar on August 27 who stole clothing and then left some of it dumped outside of a nearby house.

Police were able to recover some of the stolen clothing but no arrests were made.

Now staff hope to turn a negative experience into a positive one by selling -the recovered goods at half price and donating the proceeds to St John’s Hospice based in Moggerhanger.

Co-owner of the niche clothing store, Elaine Bartley told the Comet: “It was devastating. Watching back the footage of the burglary was terrifying.

“For me, it looked very organised. He knew exactly what he was doing – he took the newest, most popular stock.

“We are just hoping that there’s some footage from when he left through town.

“St John’s is a cause that particularly means a lot to us. I thought maybe we could make some better use out of the stolen stock and try to give something back, rather than just put it in the bin as the insurance company suggested.”

The 44-year-old from the Saxon estate was at home with her children when – at approximately 3am – the shop’s security system sent a notification to her mobile, letting her know the alarm had been set off. She added: “I couldn’t sell it as normal stock because in my opinion it was stolen – second hand if you like.”

“We thought we could do something nice. My business partner, Wayne Boswell, lost his sister and his wife, who both stayed at St John’s,

“It’s a cause that’s very close to our hearts. We felt this was the only way we could make something nice out of it.

“We’ve only been here just over a year and we’re working hard to bring a nice unique shop to Biggleswade, and then someone feels they have the right to steal our property.”

Sue Ryder St John’s Hospice Head of Fundraising Cath Cole, said: “We were so sorry to hear about the burglary at On The Wire Clothing and wish them well as they recover from it.

“We thank the owners for choosing to support St John’s Hospice at what must be a very difficult time.

Bedfordshire Police issued a statement saying officers attended the scene to carry out enquiries, and reviewed the CCTV footage. However on this occasion they were unable to identify a suspect.

The investigation has been filed pending further information coming to light.

If anyone does have information they should call 101 quoting crime reference number JD/36658/2017.