Issue 152

Police raid student village

12th February 2007

On 6 February, 10 student flats were broken into at the Hendrefoilan student village by the campus police. The Students Union, in partnership with Swansea police has been working towards decreasing the amount of burglaries in student accommodation.

Over the last two weeks the Students' Union President Owen Morgan and the Police Community Security Officer, Angela Booth, have been patrolling around Hendrefoilan Student Village looking for potential opportunities for breaking and entering into student flats.

These patrols through the student village are designed to raise awareness of the recent increase of burglaries in student accommodation, and motivate students to become more security conscious.

In last week's patrol Morgan and PCSO Angela Booth found 20 unsecured flats. Nearly all rooms had laptops, mobiles, money and DVD players in plain sight, making student valuables susceptible to being stolen. Morgan was especially surprised at the gravity of the situation.

"I was shocked that it was so easy to pinch stuff if I wanted to! Twenty individual flats were left open that PCSO Booth and myself wandered into. Just a reminder – we are there for your security and to prevent any laptops and Playstations getting stolen," he said.

The initiative seems to be making an impact on student security. In comparison to Tuesday 30 January patrol's figures, the latest patrol only resulted in 10 flats being in an insecure state.

Morgan said that, "Last Tuesday was better in a way as we spoke to more students. But since then more students realised how easy it was to get stuff nicked."

The patrol on Tuesday 6 February last week still produced some shocking results. Several flat blocks were left completely unlocked, allowing access to every floor in the block, with even students' rooms unlocked and unsupervised.

One instance involved a ground floor window being left open with easy access into the room containing numerous valuables. Upon noticing the open window, PCSO Booth attempted to get the attention of the students in the flat to warn them of the security situation. The students were unresponsive for at least five minutes, demonstrating the severity of the situation.

PCSO Booth insisted that the initiative is not a scare tactic, but instead a way of raising awareness about student safety. She insisted that the scheme's aim is "crime prevention before crime happens." She admits that students get inundated with numerous leaflets advising them on how to keep their valuables safe, but she also realizes that many students ignore them and that they are not very useful.

PCSO Booth said that, "By being here in the village, we hope that the police presence will help to motivate the students to act in a safer manner." The need for security was also emphasised on campus this week, as two individuals committed a burglary, not believed to be students, but wearing Swansea University sports tops, after walking into an unlocked room in Cefn Bryn halls on campus.

The patrolling of the Hendrefoilan Student Village aims to become a weekly endeavour and hopes to dramatically decrease the alarming amount of thefts and burglaries in the Student Village.

Students are asked once again to remember to lock their doors at all times and to keep windows and curtains drawn to prevent on lookers seeing students' valuables.

Further information is available by contacting, campus police on 01792 295882 or by email at police@swansea.ac.uk. Alternatively the the oncampus police officers can be found in Cefn Bryn Hall (Ground Floor).

Natalie Kow