Thieves who attempted to make off with three performance cars during a break-in at a north-east garage succeeded only in crashing one in a grassy embankment.
The hapless raiders targeted the family-owned Sandford Garage in Boddam in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Owner Andrew Street said three high-performance Ford Focus RS cars were broken into at around 1.30am, and he believes three suspects intended to make their getaway in them.
They were unsuccessful, however, as it emerged they had driven one of the vehicles into an embankment, just a stone’s throw away from the garage.
Mr Street has now offered-up a £1,000 reward for information linked to the attempted theft of the three vehicles.
He said: “They managed to get inside one of the cars, but couldn’t get away.
“They broke into another of the cars to take out the battery in order to jump-start the third.
“They must have been here for about 45 minutes, wandering around and trying to get the car to start.
“The locks of the cars were damaged and the windows were down.
“If they had reversed the car, they could have made it out, but they drove forward into a grassy embankment right in front of where it had been parked.
“From the CCTV footage, we could see it was three people, all of them wearing hoodies.”
Mr Street said the trio had made-off in the direction of the Buchan Braes, where they jumped into another car, which drove off in the direction of Aberdeen.
His son Jo Lawrence, who also works at the garage, was the first to arrive after receiving messages alerting him a car was “half on the pavement, half in the air”.
Mr Street added: “We’re a family business and it’s something that we shouldn’t have to deal with right now.
“It’s not a personal attack on anyone, it’s someone who wanted to steal one of these high-performance cars.
“But Monday was just a complete write-off dealing with the incident.
“We have a really good relationship with our customers and they were quite easy-going when we told them the news.
“They know that any damages will be taken care of by us.”
The cars are estimated to be worth a total of £70,000 and belong to the garage’s regular customers.
Mr Street said the business is offering a £1,000 reward to anyone who may have a positive lead that could help police trace the offenders.
Fraserburgh CID launched a probe into the incident and has urged members of the public to come forward with information.
Officers are also looking to speak to anyone who might have private CCTV or dashcam footage around 1.30am, which may have captured any suspicious persons or vehicles.
Anyone with information should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
