RAIDERS trying to steal a cash machine from a shop in north Taunton cut off hundreds of phone lines.

Homes and businesses were left without phones for up to three days after thieves hacked through three sets of underground cables, to disable alarms to the Spar shop in Cheddon Road.

Police are appealing for witnesses after at least three people broke into the shop through the roof and stole large quantities of cigarettes, scratch cards and postage stamps.

But the thieves failed to open the cash machine succeeding only in damaging it to the point where it is out of action and will have to be replaced.

For full story see Friday's Somerset County Gazette.