A group of vandals broke into Foxlane garden centre overnight – and tried to take a forklift for a spin.
The owner of the Westhill centre, Gordon Henderson discovered that someone had been on the premises during the night but bizarrely only stole one thing and did not cause any damage.
All they did take were the key to the forklift, and attempts were made to drive it.
Fortunately, they were unable to get very far in it and all they managed to do was move the forks about.
However, Mr Henderson is worried they might return again and use the stolen key to drive it about again.
Cash reward
He has offered a cash reward of £5o for its return.
Mr Henderson said: “They broke in the bothy, unfortunately I didn’t lock it the night before but we have been here for 12 years and haven’t had any trouble at all.
“There was no damage done at all, we’ve got polytunnels for the plants but everything is fine.
“What they have done is took the forklift key, they’ve been mucking about with it, used the forks but it seems like they don’t know how to reverse so they just mucked about with it.
“They have also removed the key as well and taken it with them.
“Someone actually phoned up, we offered a reward on Facebook to have it returned to us and a young lad phoned and said he found it in Westhill Shopping centre, he was about 15/16 and I told him to come to Foxlane and we will see if its right about noon but he no-showed.”
‘No wanton vandalism’
Mr Henderson believes it was a group of kids who broke into the garden centre as they never stole anything of value or damaged anything.
He has contacted the police about it but has not had a response from them yet.
In the meantime, he has shored up some of the security at the garden centre, and will make sure he locks the door when he leaves at night.
He said: “I was a wee bit disappointed this morning but there is no wanton vandalism, it just looks like the kids had a bit of fun but that is it.
“I phoned the police but they haven’t called me back yet but hopefully they can sort it out, it just seems like the kids are bored.
“I’m going to park the forklift at the back of the car park, behind the gate and padlock it, and lock the gates and will also take the gas tank off so no one can ride it.
“I hope it’s a one-off and it is strange how this has happened, but hopefully they’ve just had a bit of fun and now that’s it.
“It is a worry that they might come back with the key and try and use the forklift and now I’m going to be a lot more cautious.
“This was a crazy thing to happen.”