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OCTOBER.22.2007
FEATURES
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ISSUE 878 OCTOBER 20 2008 CARDIFF’S STUDENT WEEKLY free word - EST. 1972
INSIDE...NEWS/OPINION/FEATURES/SPORT/LISTINGS
NO MEAT NO FISH NO DAIRY PRODUCTS
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Two red-blooded carnivores go vegan for a week - Features, p. 14
Should a widow still have the right to her husband's sperm? Opinion, p. 9
LETTING THE THIEVES STROLL IN 1 in 4 students are putting themselves at risk by leaving houses insecure
Sarah Powell News Editor A gair rhydd investigation has found that students are putting themselves at risk of burglary by failing to ensure that their homes are secure. The investigation, which is regularly carried out by the South Wales Police, involved Student Liaison Officer PC Bob Keohane testing doors on student houses in the Cathays area to check if they were sufficiently secure. After only an hour he found that a quarter of the properties tested had unlocked doors, and in more than one instance he was able to enter houses and had to shout “hello” four times in order to get the residents attention. As part of the investigation, PC Bob Keohane was keen to raise awareness of security risks caused by having unlocked doors and informed residents of the danger of robberies. He warned that thieves walk around the Cathays area trying doors of houses with the aim of stealing property, which can then be sold to fund drug addictions. Student homes in particular are targeted because of their multi-occupancy capacity, PC Bob Keohane said; “In residential homes thieves can steal maybe one laptop, but in student houses you have say, 4-7 of each item, which means thieves can get enough property to sell from just one house.” Gair rhydd interviewed the resi-
dents of one unlocked house who said; “Repeatedly locking and unlocking our door is such an inconvenience when there are so many of us living in a house. We do think about security, but it’s easy to forget to lock it.” PC Bob was keen to stress the impact that such investigations have had on the amount of crime in the area, “Last year, over 300 students had their houses broken into during the academic year. But after we performed a similar investigation, checking the amount of unlocked doors, the number of burglaries in the area decreased, which must mean that people are listening to us.” Gair rhydd spoke to some students from Cardiff University to get their opinions on student security after the investigation. Clare Davies and Beth Taylor, two second year students said: “We use a deadlock at night which makes us feel safer, but some of our bedroom doors don’t have locks, so if someone left the front door open it’d be easy for our property to be stolen.” Another student Vikki Ware said “I do think about security, so we always lock our house, otherwise we’ll get robbed.” PC Bob urges students to remain vigilant in areas of student security, and reminds students to use the immobilise website to register their property as this helps police to trace stolen items: http://www.immobilise.com