Thieves have destroyed a $40,000 ATM machine in a doomed attempt to get at cash which they had little chance of reaching.

Police were at the scene within minutes after criminals had clumsily levered the face off the ATM machine on the outer wall of Harrington Hundreds Grocery Store in Smith's Parish early yesterday morning.

But the criminals gave up after slashing away at the wires which caused a short circuit which destroyed the computer board, leaving the Bank of Bermuda with a massive bill.

The bank said the machines are virtually impossible to break into, but they are now considering new security measures because botched theft attempts mean the machines are put out of action for customers.

Alan Richardson, Bank of Bermuda's executive vice president of retail clients, said: "We have to order these machines from the US and it could be up to a month before this one can be replaced.

"We will have to replace the entire thing. There is now a trend for putting new machines in vestibules which you need an ATM card to enter.'' One possibility is to make these booths lock shut if a would-be thief tried to break into the ATM machine.

Mr. Richardson said of yesterday's attempt: "It was a futile attempt. They must have assumed that because they see the cash coming out of the mouth of the machine that they would find some there when they opened it.

"But these are very sophisticated devices. The cash is kept in a reinforced steel canister with a combination in a vault away from the dispenser.

"They carried on destroying the machine as they tried to make the space wider but it's not possible to get into the vault that way.

"The machine is linked to a central computer at the Police Station and the Police arrived within three minutes.'' "There is also a 24-hour camera filming people who use the machine,'' he added.

Mr. Richardson pointed out that he felt sorry for Anthony Aguiar, the owner of Harrington Hundreds Grocery Store, where the machine was located.

Mr. Aguiar suffered stab wounds when he chased machete-wielding robbers from his store at year ago.

Mr. Richardson said: "My personal concern is for Anthony Aguiar. He was quite brutally stabbed then.

"He must feel he is being targeted as this latest attempted robbery comes fresh on the heels of that incident. I feel a lot of sensitivity for him.'' Police spokesman P.c. Alan Oliver said attacks on ATM machines were rare.

In 1993, a man was jailed for three years after robbing $22,000 from a Bank of Butterfield automatic teller after gaining entry to the bank via a lift shaft on the roof.