A SANDWICH shop owner is counting the cost after vandals were suspected of messing about with his electricity supply.

John Dunn, who runs Sanbags in the High Street, Fareham, estimates he lost up to £3,000 after being forced to throw away the contents of his four fridges and three freezers.

The shop also had to close for a day with the loss of hundreds of orders for baguettes, sandwiches and jacket potatoes.

Lunch deliveries to local companies were cancelled as staff binned dozens of different fillings including chicken, prawns, sausages and ham.

Mr Dunn, 35, who has run the popular sandwich shop since January last year, immediately knew something was wrong when he saw his ground floor premises plunged in darkness at the start of the day.

He then realised to his horror that none of his fridges and freezers were working and all the stock was unusable.

It is believed an outside switch controlling the shop's electricity supply was flicked off.

Now a protective cover has been installed to stop the same thing happening again.

"The whole shop is never completely dark so I knew that the electricity had gone out," he said.

"It has been very costly because not only have we lost stock but we were also forced to shut for a day too.

"It's the inconvenience of it all. We had to cancel our corporate deliveries.

"Now we're getting back on track and it really is a case of business as usual.

"We have a regular customer base who are all very loyal."

Police are now studying CCTV footage from a camera at the bottom of the High Street to see if any of the culprits have been caught on film.

The incident happened sometime between 3pm last Thursday and 7am the following day.

Anyone with information is being urged to contact Fareham CID on 0845 045 4545.