HUNDREDS of vacuum cleaners have been stolen from a lorry parked overnight on the A19.

The thieves cleaned-up the batch of 468 Shark machines sometime between 5pm on Monday, January 13 and 6am on Tuesday, January 14 while the lorry was parked up at Ron Perry’s services on the A19 northbound.

The Shark duoclean vaccuum cleaners have a model number of NV700UKT and a batch number of 2419.

The driver of the lorry found the curtain to the trailer cut, with empty pallets left inside.

The value of the items runs into tens of thousands of pounds, and police are appealing to anyone who may have been offered for sale any of the vacuum cleaner to contact them.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Constable Dave Angel from Hartlepool CID on the non-emergency number 101, quoting event number 007227.

Independent charity Crimestoppers can be contacted anonymously on 0800 555 111, or online at crimestoppers-uk.org