Thieves used a stolen forklift to smash a hole in the wall of a funeral director's building in Halstead, Essex, in an attempt to rip out its cash machine. The break-in, caught on camera in the early hours of Thursday morning, highlights the continuing problem of "ram-raid" style ATM thefts targeting high street businesses, even those with no obvious connection to cash handling, and left the local community dealing with damage to infrastructure and disrupted services.

Emergency services were called to the scene at around 1.50am after reports of the incident, by which point a group of men were seen trying to retrieve the machine and a vehicle used in the raid had been abandoned nearby. Craig Collier of Daniel Robinson & Sons said he was woken by the noise, which he believed roused "half the street", and worried about the proximity of the breach to the deceased inside, though the firm later confirmed the funeral home itself was undamaged and operating normally. The theft also damaged local phone and internet cables, and Essex Police, who have made no arrests but spoken to several witnesses, are appealing for anyone with information or footage to come forward, quoting incident 84 of 10 September.