A GANG of thieves targeted a family in Thorpe Bay stealing their brand new £32,000 Range Rover from their driveway in the middle of the night - then stole another car in the area just minutes later.

Kerry Pearce, 47, of Cherrybrook, woke up to find the black Range Rover Evoque, missing, having only bought it two months earlier.

Not long after finding the car was missing, the family watched back CCTV footage from a neighbour’s camera, which revealed how a gang of five men had been stealing in the area.

Mrs Pearce explained: “Our car was one of two taken from around our area within the space of 20 minutes.

The five men came at about 1.30am last Tuesday, turning up in a white Ford Fiesta, before driving around to my neighbour’s home and stealing their friend’s car, a brand new Ford Focus.

“My husband was absolutely fuming to wake up in the morning and find that the Range Rover had been taken.

“When he told me, I was so upset and really shocked, it took quite a while for me to register what had happened because I genuinely couldn’t believe it.

“It’s such a violating feeling knowing that they could’ve been watching and waiting for their opportunity to steal.

“We even drove around to make sure it hadn’t been dumped anywhere, but it wasn’t there.”

The family hope that they will have luck finding the car and are appealing for information.

Kerry continued: “Our privacy has just been ruined by this, it’s really scary and I think our neighbour was pretty shaken up, especially as she has young children - she felt sick when she found out.

“If anyone saw, I don’t think they would’ve taken a chance and tried to stop them - they could’ve had weapons for all we know.

“It really has impacted us, we can’t give the kids lifts anywhere at the minute without it.

“They’ve just left us with no car, left us worrying, left us with all this hassle of calling the police and insurance companies and all the rest of it, yet they don’t even care.

“It’s really sad when you work so hard for something to have it just selfishly taken from you - it took us ages to save and then choose what we wanted, it’s not fair.

“This is happening more and more now; you hear about things like this nearly every day.

“We’re just hoping the insurance company will be able to get us our money back or that we can actually get our car back, we’ve barely had use of the car and yet paid out so much for it.”

Anyone with information should contact Essex Police on 101, quoting crime reference number 42/83234/19.