Shop owner forced to 'swallow costs' of vandalism

Charlie Demetriou who runs two zero-waste stores in Warwickshire wants people to understand the cost of vandalism

A small business owner has said she felt compelled to write an emotional social media post after her shop was vandalised.

Charlie Demetriou runs Zero Store, a Warwickshire business which had one of its windows smashed on 9 November.

She said: "I did obviously have a small amount of anger but also disappointment and the fact that as a small business, we just have to swallow the costs."

Warwickshire Police said lines of inquiry were pursued, and the CCTV had been circulated but the suspect could not be identified.

The day after her shop window in Russell Street, Leamington Spa was smashed, Ms Demetriou decided to write a heartfelt post to remind people just how hard small business owners work to stay afloat.

She told the BBC: "I do all of the book-keeping within the business, I answer all of the emails, I do our website and manage all the kind of online orders that we process, as well as managing the staff for two shops, the social media, it's a really long list.

"When you get things like this that are completely unavoidable, and it immediately goes to the top of that list, it can be quite frustrating and really disheartening because it puts you under a lot of extra pressure."

On this occasion the shop was able to open for business after boarding up the window

The Leamington store's CCTV footage captured two men fighting outside the shop before one after the other they headbutted the window, causing it to smash, according to the owner.

Ms Demetriou said she was able to trade as normal the following day as the glass was laminated.