St George's Mayor Kenneth Bascome blamed short hours at the old police station for leaving the town vulnerable.

Mr Bascome's comments followed a break-in yesterday at Vera P Card jewellers on Water Street, close to the St George's Station.

According to store owner Jan Card, the front door was smashed in around 5am. A cabinet was broken and gold jewellery of undisclosed value taken.

Mr Bascome said: “This only reiterates the fact that we need to have a fully functioning police station in St George's. They constantly talk about a seven minutes' response time, but this wouldn't have happened if we had a round the clock station here. Mr Card has been broken into several times, and he never used to have break-ins of this kind. The same thing happens to Robertson's Drug Store.”

He said a group of about ten children had also vandalised a Christmas display and the Town Hall.

“We had about 200 bulbs taken off a display on two palm trees in front of Town Hall. Someone also went into the hall and broke a side panel on one of the showcases. The idea was to leave the hall open so visitors could come in, to make the town user-friendly, but without security it won't work.”

Mr Bascome said the lack of a police station was a threat to investment in St George's.

“We have potentially two hotels and a marina being built in St George's. If you were a financer, why should you put your money up with no full security?

“I'm not looking to make a controversy over this, but we're a living community and the St George's station is only operating from 8am to about 10pm. It definitely doesn't operate after midnight. I think we're lucky that we haven't had more incidents.”

A police spokesman confirmed that the St George's station opens at 8am but said its hours of operation vary according to staffing.