Three men are still at large more than a month after carrying out a violent robbery of two jewellery shops in South Wales. The trio were all wearing kippot.
The men are believed to be from Eastern Europe — possibly Lithuania. They were caught on CCTV as they were robbing the Clock Shop in Porthcawl near Swansea on July 31.
Wearing white shirts, black trousers and dark coloured kippot, the offenders waited until the owner of the shop had left and attacked the two female assistants with pepper spray before tying them up.
Sixty-eight-year old Mary, speaking to BBC’s Crimewatch programme, said: “I couldn’t see and my face felt as if it was on fire, I immediately thought, ‘it’s acid, I’m blind, I’ll never see again.’”
Both she and her colleague, Sue, were pushed to the floor and left lying there while the attackers filled bags with jewellery.
Following the attack, the owner has decided to close the shop
The men then stole the CCTV footage. However, there was a back-up copy, and the three men can be seen clearly both on that footage, and on footage of them stealing from another jewellery store in the town that day.
Following the attack, Mary and Sue have left their jobs, and owner Keith has decided to close the shop.
The suspects are believed to have links in the east London area, and a caller to Crimewatch identified the three men as having sold jewellery matching the description of the goods stolen outside an east London train station.
They are described as white, in their early twenties and speaking in broken English.
A spokesperson for south Wales police said: “We had a good response from the appeal on Crimewatch and we are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.”