Four scumbags burgled my pub the other night…but the most unspeakable crime happened in 2020 – Adam Brooks

I speak about my industry a lot online and on GB News. It is an industry that has suffered like no other over the last five years, from Covid forcing the doors closed with unscientific restrictions – restrictions that only a moron could have dreamt up – to severe energy, beer and food inflation that has added tens of thousands of pounds to our expenses and supplier bills.

We simply have not been able to recover from 2020-2021, with many pubs still on payment plans from that time, one that gets my back up is the bounce-back loans that many of us had to take out just to survive.

The Government did not allow us to bounce back, because they slapped us with further lockdowns and restrictions soon after. These became survival loans, and I’ve got another 18 months left to pay on mine.

Anyway, after getting that off my chest. Let’s look more broadly at the industry. This game is tough, but it is an important part of British heritage and community cohesion.

The great British pub is a tradition that many want to be protected, and the local pub plays an important part in many people’s lives, whether they’ve met their partner in one or some of their friendship groups, the local is a place many lonely people go just to have some interaction or conversations with actual people, amongst a world where everything is going online.

So, last Saturday, I was yet again targeted by a criminal group, who forced their way into the pub at 5.40am, via a locked window and decided to rip my till draws from the casings and flee.

Now, they only got away with a few hundred quid in mostly change, but the damage they caused has cost me about £1,500.

This is the second time in four months, despite a sophisticated alarm that links to the Police, someone living on site and sturdy locks.

These people have no fear of the police or neighbours hearing them breaking in.

What gets me, is that these four individuals know that they are not coming to get a big payday, but still risk getting caught for maybe £100 each.

They are either the most stupid of thieves or are so desperate that they do not care. Anyone with a brain knows that pubs do not take much cash anymore and the cash we do take is kept in a very secure safe, so that makes me think that these people are young and clueless and the CCTV seems to also indicate that.

The claims are small, so it makes claiming via my insurance more costly in the long run. During the lockdown in 2021, I was also targeted by a local mentally ill man who tried to burn the pub down. I was lucky that the fire brigade attended very quickly or the pub would have gone that night.

He was arrested and jailed, but astonishingly, he only served 2.5 years for such a serious crime.

My insurance premium is currently almost £8000 a year, so adding more claims will make it even more unaffordable. The recent break-ins have, therefore, cost me personally, and sometimes it just seems that everything is stacked against you.

My love of the pub game will never go away – my father had pubs, and I lived above two as a child. It is in my blood, and even now, my mum helps me out and is a firm favourite with the locals.

Essex Police have had a bad reputation recently due to their treatment of fellow GB News panellist Allison Pearson, but I must say, the two officers I dealt with over this have been great.

They attended within minutes and forensics were there an hour later, let’s hope they get a lead. There is a cash reward for anyone that can give me a name that leads to a conviction, or these scumbags will do it to others and at a time when businesses need all the money that they can get, that is if they can survive this Labour Government, but that is another story…