MUSICIANS who raised £2,000 with a cancer charity gig were burgled as they performed in Oxford.

The band Smackwater Jack were playing at Oxford City Football Club to raise funds for Cancer Research UK, Oxford Churchill Partners, with other Oxfordshire bands and businesses chipping in with raffle prizes and donations.

But while the four-piece band were on stage at the Beat4Life event burglars were ransacking their recording equipment, taking £2,000 worth of gear from guitarist Charlie McGlynn’s Edgecot home on September 17.

Lucy Siret, from Abingdon, Maria Hunter, from Bicester and Nick Moriarty, from Cowley, have been performing together as a Celtic rock quartet for two years and were hoping to develop the charity gig into an annual fundraiser.

Mr McGlynn said: “I do feel disgusted by the whole thing. You feel a bit insecure when someone’s been in your place.

“A lot of effort went into the night. The football club gave us the venue free of charge and there were other musicians there from places like Leicester.

“Everyone did everything for free and showed goodwill. We made £2,000 just in tickets sales and in the raffle.

“The idea is to build this thing up each year until we’re big enough to get some named bands there.”

When he returned home Mr McGlynn didn’t check the office where the band’s recording kit and other equipment is kept and didn’t find out he’d been burgled until Sunday morning.

“We got back, locked the van up and went to bed. It was only the next morning when I went out there that I realised.”