THIEVES smashed their way into a popular Newton Abbot cafe to steal £400 worth of public donations for a lifesaving defibrillator.

They struck in the middle of the night at the Clock Tower Coffee Shop to snatch the big bottle of notes and coins – and then helped themselves to the till float of £100.

The raiders ran off leaving cafe couple Paul Mackay and Angela Guo counting the cost of the damage which runs into hundreds of pounds.

Tuesday’s dawn take-away was the last straw for the couple who are also trying to settle a whopping out-of-the-blue water leak bill of more than £5,000.

Cafe manager Angela said after discovering the break-in: ‘You cannot print in a family newspaper what we think of the people who have done this.

‘Times are very hard for traders at the moment. Everyone is struggling, or just treading water. We could have done without this. It’s not exactly what we wanted.’

It’s reckoned the burglars pounced between 10pm on Monday and 6am the following day.

They discarded the till drawer just a few hundred yards away in a lane behind Wolborough Street towards Bakers Park.

‘It must have been more than one person behind this to carry the till drawer and the bottle,’ said Angela who bitterly regretted the loss of the cash so generously given by customers over the last few months.

She and Paul were prompted to engage the public in a collection for the vital medical kit after someone collapsed outside their premises earlier this year.

They were hoping to raise £1,200 for a fully automated heart massage machine. The manual versions are half the price.

Angela revealed that a person was noticed acting suspiciously in the cafe last week when he was seen to hang around the tables as if casing the joint.

Town centre CCTV images are being scrutinised as part of the quest to catch the culprits.

Police and forensic experts have examined the crime scene.

Anyone with information about the break-in, or the identity of the perpetrators, should contact police on 101 or use the confidential Crimestoppers service on 0800 555111.