Thieves fail attempt to break into Southampton home

The sleeping residents were woken up in the early hours of the morning to what sounded like grinding.

But it was only when they tried to go to work that they discovered the sound had been people trying to force their way into their flat and that their car window had been smashed.

Rasika Anantharaman, 27, a civil servant said: “My car and my neighbour’s car were broken into in the underground carpark, they broke the front driver’s window of my car.

“They took a tenner which was in the car and a sat nav, and they tried to break into our house.

“At around 5am we heard a grinding noise, we later found out what they had done was take a screw driver and try to unscrew our door handle.

“They kicked the door and tried to get in by unscrewing the door handle, but then they ran away.”

Miss Anatharaman, who lives in Southampton’s Chantry Road with her partner, said they did not realise that the noises they heard at 5am were an attempted break in.

They only discovered the truth after Miss Anatharaman’s boyfriend found their silver Mini One, which was parked in an underground carpark, had a smashed window.

On closer inspection they discovered their flat’s door had been tampered with and later found the car’s registration details with their address on it discarded in the hallway.

Miss Anatharaman added: “It was really scary because we are on the top floor and to think someone has gone to our underground car park, seen our address and decided to break into our house is shocking.

“We thought because we were on the top floor we wouldn’t get robbed, you don’t hear of people making speedy escapes from the top floor.

“We will never leave anything with personal information on in the car again.”

A Hampshire police spokesman said: “We were alerted at 8.39am on Tuesday January 26 to reports of theft from a vehicle in the underground carpark in Chantry Road.

“If anyone saw anything suspicious please contact us on 101 quoting the reference number 44160038412.”