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"Intruder" enters St Anne’s accommodation

Accommodation belonging to St Anne’s College has suffered a break-in.

An unidentified individual was seen entering college property through an open window, after climbing the building’s drainpipe.

In an email to all St Anne’s students, Martin Jackson, the Domestic Bursar, described how a “young man” was seen “climbing up the drainpipe of one of the student buildings and entering the room via an open bedroom window”.

Despite immediately searching the building, the Lodge porters were unable to find anyone. Jackson stated that as the student whose window had been left open confirmed that he did not climb up the drainpipe himself, he could therefore “deduce that it was an intruder”.

He urged St Anne’s students to step up their vigilance for the safety of the rest of the college. His email stressed the need to “protect yourself and your colleagues”.

He requested that, as an “elementary precaution”, students living in road-facing rooms in college accommodation not on the main college site keep their windows closed when not in their room.

He added that the student whose room was entered via the open window was “in the habit of doing this at all times” but stated that “this will no longer happen”.

The incident is the latest in a series of security breaches at the college.

A tramp recently broke in to one of the college houses on Woodstock Road and was found in the kitchen eating the occupant’s food.

Another third year student at the college stated that the security at the college is insufficient. She cited as an example an occasion last Trinity when a female student’s ex-boyfriend visited the college and requested the location of the student’s room, and the code necessary to enter her building.

The porters readily gave him this information, despite having no proof of the student’s identity or of his association with the female student.

The porters refused to discuss the incident of last week, or comment on the quality of the security at the college.

However, several students have expressed their distress at the situation and expressed their belief in the need for security at the college to be tightened.

One fourth year said, “It’s really lax”, adding that “pretty much anyone can walk in and the porters hardly bat an eyelid”

Another third year complained that the security “could definitely be a lot tighter”.

However, JCR Vice-President Tom Lockton, JCR Vice President, denied that the security needed improvement, and instead praised it as “absolutely brilliant”.

No college officials were available to comment.

 

 

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