THE co-founder of a Halstead toys and games store is ‘struggling not to give up’ after his business was ransacked twice resulting in more than £60,000 worth of goods being stolen.

Jonathan Farenden, 39, is one of the founders of Retroformers, located at The Centre, off Halstead High Street.

A masked crook smashed the shop’s bottom front door panel at 2.30am on March 19, stealing numerous products from the shop.

Shockingly another burglary occurred two weeks later on March 30.

Gazette: Awful - a CCTV image showing the crook stealing from Retroformers in HalsteadAwful - a CCTV image showing the crook stealing from Retroformers in Halstead (Image: Retroformers)

After a revised stocktake, the business has lost £63,862.50 of stock.

The incident has taken a huge emotional toll on Jonathan.

He said: “It has hit me hard, the business I’ve worked so hard to build, being crippled and damaged by this.

“I’m struggling to keep myself from giving up with the increase in costs and general problems in the country at moment and then this.”

The bulk of the cost comes from several boxes containing thousands of Pokémon cards being stolen, resulting in £58,500 of the total figure.

Gazette: Unhappy - Jonathan FarendenUnhappy - Jonathan Farenden (Image: Retroformers)

Between 32 to 34 trainer boxers of Pokémon cards were stolen and each box holds around 600 cards.

The rest of the eye-watering total figure came from Warhammer products, DVDs, games, an Xbox 360, Lego and more that were also stolen during the two break-ins.

The smashed door panel is secured but awaiting assessment, and the new alarm system is up and running.

Gazette: Shop - RetroformersShop - Retroformers (Image: Retroformers)

Jonathan has spoken about how things are recovering for Retroformers at the moment.

He said: “The new alarm system is up sand running which is giving peace of mind knowing we have a call out system if someone tries this again.

“The public can continue to support us by shopping locally.

“The recovery is slow but this mainly down to my own mental situation over what has happened”.

A Essex Police says a 25-year-old Colchester man was arrested in connection with the on-going investigation.

The man was arrested on suspicion of two counts of burglary, other than dwelling, and one count of handling stolen goods, but is currently released on bail.