A man broke in to the third floor of Regent’s Park College on the night of Tuesday 30th October, and stayed outside for several hours.
The man, believed to be homeless, took a ladder from the building works on Pusey Street, dragged it to St Giles, and then climbed up the scaffolding to the third floor of the college’s Wheeler building.
The alarms were set off, at which point he began to behave loudly and aggressively. A window was broken and the inhabitants of the flat were evacuated, spending the night sleeping on the Junior Dean’s floor.
The intruder is thought to have been intending to commit theft. It is unclear how the window was smashed.
Ben Deaner, a third year studying PPE at Regent’s told Cherwell, ‘He was talking about homelessness problems in Oxford. He said that he’d been on the streets for 15 years. He was antagonising the police and shouting and swearing down at them, calling one of them a liar and going on about how he knew who they all were. He kept saying it was going to be a long night and asked when the Oxford Mail was coming. He was up there for about four hours.’
A Wheeler resident said, ‘College dealt well with the crisis, immediately evacuating the flat where he broke a window and generally keeping an eye on the situation and the people involved. They had done everything they could to make sure the scaffolding was alarmed.’
The reaction on Facebook was less calm. One student who lives in the flat wrote, “You’d think you’d be safe from casual breaking and entering what with being on the THIRD FLOOR. Apparently this is a flawed assumption.”
JCR President Jack Watson commented, “The matter is now in the process of being investigated by the police. Statements were taken from those affected.’
Regent’s Park College has made no official response to the intrusion. The college bursar declined to comment.
