A TOY shop owner has apologised after suddenly shutting up shop and leaving Christmas customers out of pocket.

Festive savers were left panicked last week following the overnight closure of Darlington’s Bondgate Toys.

With no explanation available and unable to reach the shop’s owners, Christmas club customers immediately feared the worst, contacting the authorities over the possible theft of their savings.

Today, owner Andrew Smiles said it had never been his intention to do a “moonlight flit” and apologised to those affected by the shop’s closure.

Mr Smiles offered full refunds to those still owed money and said financial pressures were behind the decision to close immediately.

He blamed the dissolving of a former partnership on the rapid deterioration of the business’ finances and confirmed he had left Darlington to live elsewhere.

Claiming he only owed customers around £48, he said: “We were finding it difficult to afford the shop and had to close, it has been a bit of a nightmare.

“I’m aware of the situation with our savers club and I’ve been trying to find everyone to return their money.

“I’ve tried to contact as many as I can but I don’t have all the addresses or phone numbers.

“It was never my intention to rip anyone off but we had a situation we had to deal with and we couldn’t get into further debt.

“We didn’t move house to run away, it was to avoid other problems, we needed to quiet the situation down.

“The shop situation did not work out, it’s as simple as that – we didn’t run away, we didn’t rip people off, that was never going to happen.”

Customer Jaime Collishaw paid £40 a month into the Christmas scheme and attempted to report the shop owners to police last week.

She said she was unconvinced regarding Mr Smiles’ offer to repay the money.

She said: “If he’s in such a terrible financial state, how can he afford to repay all the money he owes?

“I paid more than £82 in and it just doesn’t make sense.

“It’s not even about the money - if he would just agree to meet me and give me the toys I’ve put away for my children for Christmas, I’d be eternally grateful.”

Anyone still owed money by Bondgate Toys is asked to email bondgatetoys@gmail.com.