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Underground cables worth £17,500 stolen from Banham
Thieves pulled £17,500 of cabling out of a manhole cover in Banham overnight and left them in Quidenham Road before collecting the next day - Credit: Google
Thieves made off with £17,500 worth of underground telecommunications cable after stealing it through a manhole cover.
Hundreds of people were affected following the theft, which caused disruption to telephone and broadband lines in the area.
Around 800m of cables were stolen overnight between 5.30pm and 6.30am on Wednesday, February 2 from a rural road, The Fen, in Banham.
The cabling was then taken to Quidenham Road about a mile away, where they were collected the next day.
A spokesman for Openreach, who own the stolen cabling, said: “We were really disappointed that local people in Banham bore the brunt of criminal behaviour earlier this month.
“Around 800 metres of our underground cable was stolen, and the network badly damaged.
"This caused disruption to hundreds of phone lines, including broadband.
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"But during the following days, our engineers worked extremely hard to replace the cables, repair the damaged infrastructure and connect everyone back up again.
“We urge people to report any suspicious activity to the police, that they spot around any of our infrastructure.”
Police are appealing for information about the theft.
Anyone with information should contact PC Ryan Smith at Norfolk Police on 101 quoting crime reference number 36/10108/22.
Alternatively the can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 55 111.
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