Man arrested after three burglaries on campus

A man has been charged with three burglaries that took place on the grounds of DCU last month.

The thefts occurred on two separate dates in the DCU Sports Academy, the Computer Applications building and the School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies (SALIS).

The man, 19, who is from Ballymun, was arrested and charged by Gardai in connection with the incidents.

On Sunday October 26 two laptops were stolen from the Student Recruitments Office of the Computer Applications building.

The second burglary happened on the morning of Thursday October 30, where an undisclosed amount of cash and a mobile phone were taken. The burglar then entered the Sports Academy at approximately 11 am and stole two laptops, a camera and a chequebook.

Julie Davis, the Strength Conditioning Coach at the Sports Academy, believes the burglary happened shortly after she left at 10:15am to attend a meeting in the Sports Science building.

Davis said: “When I came back to the office after my meeting shortly before 12pm, I discovered that the door to [GAA Academy Director] Declan Brennan’s office had been kicked in, the blinds had been pulled and a number of items had been taken. I rang campus security straight away and they arrived in less than five minutes.”

She added: “There’s usually always someone here in the academy but it just so happened that on that day both myself and Declan happened to be out of the office.”

Within half an hour of discovering the burglary, staff at AIB Santry contacted DCU security to inform them that one of the cheques from the stolen chequebook had been presented to them.

A garda from Whitehall Station, who was on campus at the time of the theft investigating the first burglary, travelled to Santry to examine the incident but the burglar had already left the scene.

Through viewing the CCTV footage on campus and at AIB Santry, Gardai were able to confirm the identity of the burglar.

The man was already known to Gardai and campus security.

A search warrant was obtained from the courts, permitting a search of the suspect’s premises in Ballymun that evening.

During the course of their search Gardai recovered all the items which had been stolen from the Sports Academy earlier that day.

The nineteen-year-old was arrested the following morning and appeared in Court 44 of the Dublin District Court where he was charged with four counts of burglary. He is currently being remanded in custody without bail.

The incident in the Sports Academy was not the first of its kind. The Academy has had a total of three burglaries in the past 16 months.

This week, it is planned to improve the security system in the building by introducing swipe card access.

Raymond Wheatley, DCU Security Services superintendent, said they will be tightening security: “We’re going to beef up the system. We’re putting new locks on the doors, a bit of access control, and we have asked them to be more vigilant in terms of security by locking doors and storing expensive equipment in secure cabinets.” he said.

“These are the three lines of defence we’re going to start with. We could introduce CCTV and alarm systems but we’re not there just yet. A bit of common sense is a better approach at the moment.”

While the man charged is currently in custody, Wheatley pointed out that there have been people like this on campus before and was keen to warn students to make a conscious effort to be more careful with their property.

He said: “These particular individuals are not dangerous, they’re only looking for a quick buck, and they’re looking for laptops. Students with laptop computers, iPods and mobile phones should try to be more careful.

“If you’re leaving the lab or a lecture hall try and make things less available to thieves. These types of people only try to take things that are clearly visible to them.”