In the early hours of 13 September 2017, thieves used a stolen telescopic handler to smash through the wall of Sainsbury's Local on Common Lane, Culcheth, all to get at the cash machine inside. Subtle it was not. This was less Ocean's Eleven, more agricultural machinery meets bad life choices.
According to Cheshire Police, the incident happened at about 02:30 BST. The heavy lifting vehicle was used to remove the cash machine from the shop, leaving behind a sizeable hole in the wall and a village collectively tutting into its morning brew.
The cash machine was then transferred into an unknown vehicle before those involved fled the scene. That detail is particularly frustrating, because it suggests this was not some spur-of-the-moment nonsense. It sounds planned, brazen, and deeply antisocial, the sort of crime that lands the cost and disruption squarely on local staff, customers, and the wider community.
There is, thankfully, no mention of anyone being hurt, which is the most important part. But let us not pretend this is just a bit of broken brickwork. A local shop was damaged, a useful village cash point was taken, and people who rely on nearby services were left inconvenienced because a gang decided Culcheth needed an overnight building alteration nobody asked for.
Cheshire Police asked anyone who may have witnessed the incident to get in touch. Given the size and noise of a telescopic handler tearing into a wall, it is hardly the sort of thing that slips quietly through the village like a cat over a fence.
For Culcheth, this was a nasty reminder that even a familiar spot like Common Lane can be hit by organised, heavy-handed theft. The positive, if there is one, is that incidents like this tend to sharpen local awareness. The criticism is simple enough: using stolen machinery to rip apart a shop for a cash machine is reckless, selfish, and deserves the full attention of the police.