POLICE are urging residents to secure their homes after a spate of overnight break-ins.

Burglars have targeted homes in Frodsham, Helsby, Norley and Sutton Weaver, using knives and screwdrivers to pry open doors whilst residents slept.

With four break-ins in three days, last weekend marked an all time high for burglaries across the region, with 16 break-ins during May alone.

Police are now concerned that travelling criminals may be marking-out the area during the day, before returning at night to target “affluent” and “easily accessible” homes.

In just three days criminals stole:

A Ford Focus from Chester Road,Sutton Weaver.

A television from a driveway in Overton Drive, Frodsham.

Crates of Magners cider from a house in Cliff View, Frodsham.

And a failed break-in saw burglars flee a house in Cliff View, Frodsham, after residents heard someone chiselling at their back door.

With 16 break-ins this month against the policing target of 9, Inspector Phil Hodgson is warning residents to be vigilant.

He said: “Our area is being targeted by travelling criminals who are coming in from areas like Merseyside and pinpointing affluent and easy targets in places like Frodsham and Helsby.

“For the criminals this is their full time job, so if they find an area were they are successful they will continue to target it.

After midnight on Saturday residents awoke to the sound of burglars attempting to break-in to their home on Fingerpost Lane, Norley, using what is thought to have been a screwdriver.

The two offenders fled the scene without stealing any belongings, but despite an extensive search by officers and the police helicopter the burglars escaped.

And at 2am on Sunday morning the house of a middle aged couple living in Cliff View, Frodsham was broken-into while they slept.

Their back door had been forced open and two crates of cider swiped.

Inspector Hodgson, advised: “Make sure that everything is locked before you go to bed.

“Do not leave anything expensive or that looks expensive on show, activate any burglar alarms, do not give these criminals an easy ride.”