THIEVES botched two ram-raids at Bucks Horn Oak service station and Liphook post office in the early hours of Saturday.

The bungling criminals first used a silver 4x4 to smash into the wall of the Gulf service station, opposite Alice Holt Forest (pictured) on the A325 Bordon Road, sometime between 3.30am and 4am.

They left a hefty hole in the wall of a storeroom, but were unable to extract the service station’s safe and escaped empty handed.

Not long afterwards, at around 4.15am, the thieves turned up in Liphook and smashed into the side of the village’s Co-op and post office.

Again they left a large hole in the wall of the building, but due to the rubble burying the safe, the thieves once more took nothing and drove off down Headley Road.

Police later discovered an abandoned Mitsubishi 4x4 on Monday in woods at Longmoor Army Camp, which is thought to have been the vehicle used in both crimes.

Anyone who witnessed the above incidents or has any information on the crimes is asked to call Pc Helen Carthew at the Northern Police Investigation Centre in Basingstoke on 101.