Thieves steal butcher Michael's top pies

Butcher Michael Fuller's minced beef and onion pies have always been popular but who would have thought somebody would go to such lengths to get some?For rather than waiting for the shop at Litcham to open and buying them like any normal customer, one unsavoury (and presumably tiny) character broke in by carefully removing a one foot by one foot window pane from the front of the shop and squeezing through the gap.

Butcher Michael Fuller's minced beef and onion pies have always been popular but who would have thought somebody would go to such lengths to get some?

For rather than waiting for the shop at Litcham to open and buying them like any normal customer, one unsavoury (and presumably tiny) character broke in by carefully removing a one foot by one foot window pane from the front of the shop and squeezing through the gap.

The hungry burglar then escaped with four of Mr Fuller's tasty pies.

'If it wasn't serious it would be funny,' Mr Fuller said.

'You have to smile to think they came in and out of the shop through that tiny window. The only thing I could see was missing was four minced beef and onion pies. The sad thing is they did not leave any money for them.'

He said he first realised his Church Street store, The Village Butcher, had been broken into when he arrived at the shop on Saturday, February 28.

'I turned up in the morning and noticed a chisel on the front window. When I got out of my van I saw the window trim on the floor and I found the glass in the churchyard still whole,' he said.

When he went inside he found the till, which had been left empty overnight, had been taken apart and documents were strewn everywhere.

Mr Fuller said the burglar had also been looking in cupboards at the back of the butchers, but the only things he found to be missing were four pies from the deli counter that usually each cost �1.19 to buy.

'I always work with the principle it is best not to get stressed about what you cannot change.

'In a way I was very lucky because they could have trashed the place,' he said, adding that there was a lot of expensive fridges and equipment in the shop that could have easily been damaged.

Instead he said it took about 10 minutes to clear up inside the shop, and, because the burglar had left the window trim still intact and the glass pane undamaged, it took about two minutes to fix the window.

A Norfolk Police spokesman confirmed officers were investi-gating a burglary at the shop which happened some time between 5pm on Friday February 27 and 7.25am the following morning.

Contact Dereham police on 0845 4564567.