Terrifying tale of a burglary in a Harborough village

A village couple had a terrifying ordeal when burglars kicked down their front door just after midnight, demanded the keys to their luxury car at knifepoint - and then drove away in it.
The stolen AudiThe stolen Audi
The stolen Audi

The frightening incident happened in Bitteswell, near Lutterworth at 12.20am on December 19. The stolen car was an Audi RS3, worth about £40,000.

Car owner Phil Chambers, of Lutterworth hairdressers Chambers and Neal, told the Mail: “We were asleep – me and my fiancée – when they just kicked in the front door and came up the stairs shouting “get the keys, give us the keys, you know why we’re here”.

Phil ChambersPhil Chambers
Phil Chambers

A startled Phil, wearing only boxer shorts, rummaged for his keys in a bedside cabinet - they weren’t there.

The men grew impatient. One shouted at Phil’s fiancée “I’m going to f****** stab him”. She said “he’s looking for them”.

Finally Phil found the keys in his trouser pocket and handed them over. The two men then drove off in Phil’s car, with a third man in a separate vehicle. But the story doesn’t end there.

Police recovered the vehicle in Coventry later that morning – Phil thinks it would have run out of petrol. Officers put the car in their secure facility in the city.

The vehicle was then stolen again from the police’s secure facility in a ram raid by the same thieves on the evening of December 19. They used Phil’s car keys they had stolen earlier to drive the Audi away. The vehicle has not been found.

Phil said: “They just ram-raided the secure facility with another stolen car, unlocked my car and drove it off.

“I suppose it was either stolen to order or they’d left evidence in it that could tie them directly to the burglary.”

Leicestershire police and West Midlands police are both still investigating.