A MAN has been charged with burglary following a ram-raid attack on a York supermarket.

Thieves turned the entrance to the newly-opened Aldi food store in Jockey Lane into a shattered mess of broken glass and twisted metal after ploughing a car into the front of the building.

A single laptop compter was stolen in the raid. Police have now charged a 31-year-old local man.

As well as the burglary charge relating to the ram-raid, the man was charged with making off without paying, for driving licence and insurance offences, aggravated vehicle taking, two other counts of burglary relating to previous offences and two counts of theft.

The charge of making-off without paying relates to an incident that took place a couple of hours before the Aldi burglary was discovered by a passing security patrol. In that incident, a driver filled his car with petrol at the BP garage in Great North Way, Nether Poppleton, and left without paying.

The man will appear at York Magistrates Court on February 21.

The other two burglary offences related to incidents at the Netto supermarket in Clifton Moor, York, that occurred on December 9 and 28.

The alleged thefts took place elsewhere in the country.

The Aldi store was open for business at 1pm on Wednesday and was open as usual from 9am yesterday. One woman, who lives near to the store, said: “I regularly shop here, so I feel really angry when I see something like this.

“It only opened a couple of months ago. It’s a lovely new store and now this happens – it’s just absolutely mindless and it will probably have caused problems for a lot of people who shop there.

“It makes you despair and I hope the police catch whoever is responsible quickly.”