A SINGER who won a new car is trading it in following five break-ins during the past two years.

Alison Thompson has had her T-reg Peugeot 106 broken into three times in a Bolton Council owned and CCTV protected car park in Bath Street over the past year.

In the latest attack she had left her vehicle in the early evening at a car park fitted with CCTV in Central Street.

After spending the evening at the Albert Halls she returned to the car park to find someone had broken the driver's lock of her Peugeot with a screwdriver before ransacking the vehicle.

She is now so fed-up of making insurance claims and having the locks repaired that she is going to sell the vehicle and buy a different model.

Mrs Thompson, who lives in Bromley Cross and is a member of the Brixi Singers chamber group and Bolton Catholic Musical Society, was over the moon when she won the car in March 1999.

But along with fellow members of both singing groups who have repeatedly had their vehicles broken into while attending rehearsals, she feels reluctant to leave a car in any town centre car park.

The singing groups had become so frustrated at the number of break-ins that they had staged their own security patrols.

Mrs Thompson said: "It gets to the stage when you wonder if it's worth still making the effort, but I won't be beaten and am determined to keep using the car parks even if I have to get a different car."

A spokesman from Bolton police said: "Together with the local authority and other agencies we are committed to ensuring parking in the town is as safe as possible.

"Two town centre car parks and one out of town site have already received the 'Secured by Design award', which is given out to areas which have passed a strict criteria of security requirements."

A spokesman from Bolton Council said: "In the past six months we have monitored 53 incidents on car parks and the police or members of the public have made 22 requests for footage of car crime to be released.

"This year we have worked with them on two specific operations to tackle car crime where police officers joined our staff in the CCTV suite in live monitoring of footage."