VOLUNTEERS have raised concerns about security after a safe and a handbag were snatched from a charity shop.

The portable safe, containing just under £100 in cash, was stolen in the middle of the night from the Children's Society charity shop in George Lane, South Woodford, just two days before a handbag was taken from the back room.

Volunteer manager Margaret Campbell said: "When the man broke in he must have made an awful lot of noise because someone living in the flats down the road called the police.

"It was at about half past midnight on a Friday.

"The police were there within two minutes and apprehended the gentleman who had gone through the window with such force that he knocked the front door out of joint and my volunteers had trouble getting in the next day.

"He found the safe and tried to go off with it but it had less than £100 in it."

She added: "My handbag was stolen the Monday after.

"We usually hide them in the back but I had just been to the bank and somebody probably saw me put it in the work room.

"That's the trouble when there's only two of you there."

Just a week after the break-in, which was the shop's third, a purse was also stolen from an elderly lady's pocket.

Volunteer Ann Yude said: "People do come in here to pick-pocket because they know there's a lot of elderly people and we also get quite a lot of shop lifters, even though much of the stuff is only worth a pound or two."

Roy Saville, 39, from Loughton, will appear before Redbridge magistrates' at 10am tomorrow (Friday)charged with attempted theft.