An “unprofessional” thief caused £1,000 worth of damage to steal just £27 from an Angus business.
It took the thief two hours to force a carwash safe at Barrie Ewart’s Autosales garage in Kirriemuir before leaving with a clutch of change.
The raid on the Lindsay Street premises is the fourth in three years and the second in 2014.
“It’s close on to £1,000 worth of damage, what he’s done,” said Mr Ewart.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’ve lost that much, although we’ll try to keep costs down by doing some of the work ourselves.
“The guy’s spent an hour and 20 minutes at the car wash wrecking the outside, trying to get into the safe.
“We empty this thing so regularly that we’re not going to put a safe in the next one.
“If someone wants to break the door to get £27 then that’s the end of it.”
Mr Ewart, 53, said that he had installed CCTV equipment because of his previous experiences and the cameras had captured a man donning a pair of gloves before the break-in.
He said the footage also showed the suspect’s car.
“You should see the guy on camera,” Mr Ewart added.
“He’s the most unprofessional guy in the world. In fact, I could have done it better myself.
“It is easy to see him preparing to break in and there is further footage over the two hours he spent damaging the equipment in his attempts to get money out.
“It works out that he got less than £15 an hour for his efforts. The local police are trying hard to find him and we have to hope for a lucky break.”