The pub is known for being at the 'heart of the community'

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A group of "sophisticated" thieves targeted a pub at the "heart of a village community" on Monday.

The Shippons Pub & Kitchen, in Irby, Wirral, was the target of a "sophisticated" attack from thieves early on Monday morning (July 25). Police are now looking for three male suspects after multiple items were taken and "36 20-litre empty drums of oil" was dumped by the trio.

At 5.25am, a white van was captured on CCTV entering the pub's car park. A group of men then emerge from the vehicle, with some carrying multiple buckets , which they take around the back of the van to dump.

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One man walks to the other end of the car park and seems to begins swapping out buckets of waste oil - worth "£500" - with similar looking, but empty buckets.

Steve Edmunds, owner of Shippons, told the ECHO: "On the CCTV video what you see them do is bring their own buckets and replace my buckets with some very similar while they steal the oil. What they do is quite sophisticated.

"It's cost me about £500 in waste oil. It's waste oil they're stealing.

"Its the second time that its happened to me but its the first time I've really noticed it because of the way that I found out that morning. The first time I only found out much later that it'd been stolen.

"I took over Shippons around 14 years ago. It's in the heart of the community, in a quiet little village, it is quite rural.

"These people are obviously driving round seeking these quiet places out.

"What pub restaurants tend to do is to store their waste oil outside overnight because its the safest way to do it. Whilst it's inside it's dangerous- you could slip on it, there's a fire risk etc.

"So we tend to store it outside and [the thieves] obviously caught on to this. "[They also] dumped 36 20-litre empty drums of oil into my bin area.

"I think they've stolen that oil somewhere else, emptied it into a container in their wagon and then dumped the buckets in my bin."

A spokesperson for Merseyside Police said: "Yesterday, Monday 25 July, we received a report of theft from a premises on Thingwall Road, Irby.

"It was reported that, at around 5.25am, three male suspects approached the Shippons pub in a white Transit van and took a large quantity of cooking oil from outside the premises. The suspects are described as white males in their 40s.

"One of the men is described as large build with a beard and wearing black shorts, one is described as wearing an orange t-shirt and a high-viz vest and the other is described as wearing a white t-shirt and grey shorts.

"CCTV enquiries have been carried out, and anyone who witnessed the incident, or with any information, is asked to contact police."

Anyone with information, or who may have dashcam footage from the area is asked to contact police via Twitter @MerPolCC or call 101 with reference 22000534151.

You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or pass information via their online form at: https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/give-information.

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