A number of shops in a village have had to close their doors after being hit by a series of thefts over the weekend.

Karishma Patel, the daughter of the owner of Crescent Stores, in Hoo, says the problems started on Friday.

She said children were coming into the shop in Main Road and stole around £250 worth of stock including drinks, ice creams, sweets, crisps and drink.

The team has since locked the door and is only opening to customers who ask to come in.

Karishma said the business was losing money as many people were avoiding the area.

They also had to hire more staff than usual so someone can guard the door.

The Co-op in Main Road has also been targeted and shut to customers at 10am today after the thefts continued.

Store manager Sam Dasilva said: "We have had to shut. Children have been literally coming in and stealing from us and causing chaos.

"It has just been getting worse over the weekend. We had the odd one or two at the start but then we had 20 children in here.

"They have just been taking random stuff like sweets and drinks,.

"We are now waiting for the regional manager to organise us some security guards and then we will hopefully reopen."

Sam believes more than £1,000 worth of stock has been stolen since the end of last week.

Police confirmed they were called at around 1.45pm on Saturday after a report that on a number of occasions that day items including sweets, chocolate and alcohol had been stolen from the supermarket chain.

Details of the incident have been recorded pending any further information coming to light.

Sam and Karishma also suggested the Spar and discount store Hoo News and Booze have been targeted too.