THE owner of a family-run business said he suffered a ‘devastating blow’ when his firm was targeted in an audacious burglary.

Fredrick Smith, 47, owns FJ Fabrications Ltd in Aqueduct Road, Blackburn, with his wife, Tracy.

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Mr Smith’s premises, where he makes bespoke wrought-iron fencing and gates, was broken into over the weekend, and the thieves escaped with thousands of pounds’ worth of custom-made stock.

The burglars hammered a padlock off a gate to gain access to the yard, and stole two six-foot-high gates, and six four-foot-high panels of fencing, all of which had been made to order.

The total haul would weigh around two tonnes, and would have required a team of people or specialist equipment to move.

Mr Smith said: “It’s a devastating blow, to be quite honest, we do all the work by hand.

“It’s money that we can’t really afford. We can’t really afford to buy the metal again, but we’re going to have to. As a small business it’s hard work as it is, it’s something that we didn’t need straight after Christmas.

“We’ve put a lot into this business, this is our future, a future for our kids, and when something like this happens you wonder whether it’s worth it. It’s a blow and a half.

F J Fabrications often provides work free for charitable causes. Mr Smith said: “We try to gain that support from the public by doing things like that, but you lose all faith in it when something like this happens.

“You wonder what the point is.

“We haven’t given up hope yet.

“Maybe somebody will do something for us and come forward with some information. It’s just waiting and seeing.

“I’d ask anyone with information to please contact the police or come to me, maybe we could do something for them.

“The pair of gates weighed about 300kg each, it would’ve taken more than two men to pick them up.

“We think there will have been some noise, somebody must have seen it.”

PC Jason Manning, from Blackburn Police, said: “Whoever committed the crime has obviously spent a lot of time at the premises to steal the items.”

“I would urge anybody who saw or heard anything at that time over the weekend to contact police, and anyone who has been approached asking to buy or scrap these items to contact police.

“A lot of labour and skill has gone into building these, we would like to think any scrap dealer would think to make enquiries.”

Police believe the burglary happened sometime between 2pm on Saturday afternoon, and Monday morning.

Anyone will information can contact PC Manning at Blackburn police station, or call police on 101., or phone Crimestoppers anyonymously on 0800 555 111.