CAR garage owner Tim Wilson was the target of vandals at the weekend after more than 15 of his vehicles were broken into and hundreds of pounds worth of items stolen.

He made the discovery when he turned up to work on Sunday at the Intercity Industrial Estate in Melksham to find ignitions hanging out and items misplaced.

“I came in and found piles of keys in gloves outside the sliding doors,” he said. “I thought something’s not right here.”

When he inspected the cars he counted more than 15 were damaged, several others had been searched, and stereos and car parts were missing.

Luckily some of the cars were due to be scrapped anyway, but Mr Wilson and his team at TW Auto Services are going to have to spend time repairing the ones he was planning to sell.

“There is no logic,” he added. “They’ve tried taking radios and all they’ve succeeded in doing is breaking them trying to get them out.

“Most of them were going for scrap anyway so I don’t care, the more annoying fact is that they’ve done this, other buildings have been tampered with and the annoyance of dealing with it all.”

A wander around the rest of the industrial estate, Mr Wilson found the vandals had kicked down and smashed the window to the storage unit behind his and searched inside but nothing is thought to have been taken. Another unit had a cracked window and crowbar marks to the entrance.

Mr Wilson, who has been trading in Melksham for over a year after previously being located in Bradford on Avon for nearly eight, added: “It’s a job to know how long they were actually here for and when.

“So many people come and go down here throughout the day, you are never able to keep track of who’s scouting out and who’s genuine.”

Police are appealing for anyone with information to call them on 101 or anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.