November the 28th last year saw thousands of pounds of damage to Blue Cross and Oxfam when donation bags were set alight outside the High Street shops.
The fire set by the arsonists damaged Oxfam’s door frame, smashing the front window, as well as damage to the front of homeless pet charity Blue Cross.
At the time a 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of arson in November, but he was bailed and then released without charge on the 18th May, last week.
Since Surrey Police have dropped the investigation and have said the case will not be re-opened unless they receive any new information.
Jasmin Shelley, the manager at Egham’s Oxfam, said she is very disappointed by the decision.
She made the point that “whoever did it caused an awful lot of damage and they are unlikely to pay for it now”.
“Obviously it’s very disappointing and there’s a worry he [the person who responsible for the attack] might do it again.”
Both of the shops were repaired after Chris Beresford, facilities manager at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, made a donation to cover some of the costs.
“We are very lucky that a gentleman did some fundraising for us and covered a lot of the costs to our frontage,” said Mrs. Shelley.
“But it was very distressing for us and the shop had only been redecorated.”
She added: “Obviously we would like someone to be held accountable, but there’s no way of making that happen. I can’t do anything about it and we have got the shop back looking as good as we can. If he does it again, perhaps he will get caught. It’s completely out of my hands and I have no choice but to move on.”
Tony Holmes, retail manager of Blue Cross, has said that “sadly, the cost of unexpected incidents like this risk diverting much-needed resources from the important causes, like the pets in our care. The Blue Cross shop has luckily had fantastic support from the community to get back on its feet and is now going from strength to strength.”
“We hope that everything possible is being done to further prevent similar or even more serious incidents locally in future.”