A CHARITY shop which raises cash for cerebral palsy sufferers is being plagued by thieves on a daily basis.

It is being targeted even though a lot of what it sells costs between 15p and 25p.

Rita Harris, the team leader at the shop, on Lampits Hill, Corringham, is disgusted.

She said shoplifting was rife and the last straw was the theft of the main prize in the store’s charity tombola.

Mrs Harris said: “We had an expensive Fiorelli bag as a prize, there were a couple of people in the shop and I had to go out to the back quickly. When I came back it was gone.

“I was so angry. We are trying to help people who can’t help themselves, and this is what we have to put up with.

“We get something lifted nearly every day. People can’t believe that a charity shop gets shoplifters, but it’s rife.

“People will steal anything, even CDs that we sell for just 25p, and it’s not just kids who come in and steal, it’s adults as well.”

Mrs Harris says that part of the problem is the attitude of some of the shoppers who come in.

She said: “People try to haggle on the price of things which are as little as £1.50.

“They say to me ‘but you were given this’ because the things we sell are donated.”

The Thurrock & District Cerebral Palsy Society shop needs security cameras to combat the problem as it has the floor space of two shops, but it can’t afford them.

Mrs Harris added: “We haven’t got the funds at the moment because we are still paying for things for our new centre out the back, but I’m hoping that once that is out of the way, security cameras will be top of the list.”