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Student’s house burgled in Cowley

The shared student house of Nouri Verghese, the Oxford Union’s treasurer-elect, was broken into and burgled over the Christmas vacation.

The students returned in the new year to find the locks of their St Clements’ house had been broken. They entered to see that bicycles, clothes and televisions were missing. The stolen goods were worth an estimated £3000-4000. There have been no police charges for the burglary.

Last week one of the house’s windows was smashed in, and a few days later Verghese claims to have seen a man stalking around outside the property before leaving.

Verghese said he was “understandably feeling pretty pissed off.”
78 burglaries of shared accommodations in the Oxford area were reported to the Thames Valley Police over the winter vacation period.

Verghese advised other students living-out to “make sure all locks are good. If they’re not, change them or get your landlord to change them.”

A crime prevention adviser for the police service suggested that all students “take high-value goods home with them at the end of term.”

He also highlighted the importance of insurance for all properties, and recommended students to read over the terms of their policy.

“Most insurance companies specify that you must have a lock on your bedroom door, even if you are in a shared house.”

Student houses are widely believed to be more at risk of burglary than other properties, with one Home Office Report claiming that one in ten students in the UK had had their house broken into, and another that one in three students are at some point a victim of crime. “It’s no surprise…Students own more expensive goods per head than the rest of the population,” said the report.

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