INTRUDER UPDATE

Notice 2016 No 21

UPDATE REGARDING INTRUSIONS INTO SUMMERWOOD VILLAGE

Dear Member/Resident,

1. The Village Manager in conjunction with senior employees of Servest Security, our service provider, investigated the incidents which were reported in Notice No. 20 of 9 November 2016 and related to the intrusion into the Summerwood village on the night and early morning of 8th and 9th November 2016.
   
2. It was established that:
   
   2.1 At approximately 22h00 on the night, Ms Tracy Neethling of 2B Greenwood Way, while relaxing with visitors, was alerted by the growling of her dog at the front door of the residence. She presumed that it was due to him hearing something outside. She peered through the door window but could not see anything of a concerning nature.
   
   2.2 Between 02h00 and 04h009 (unfortunately a more accurate time cannot be given), Mrs Angela Thompson, of 2 Greenwood Way, proceeded to the kitchen to prepare a bottle for the baby. She found the kitchen door to the backyard open. Further examination revealed that her husband’s wallet and her jogging shoes had been removed from the kitchen and sitting room respectively. Mr Thompson had earlier overlooked locking the door when coming into the house.
   
   2.3 Mr Eugene Ricketts of 37 Greenwood Way reported that at approximately 04h00 his two dogs in the house became very restless. As a result of presuming that it was due to them having heard something untoward outside, he let them free into the garden. There was nothing on the property at that time.
   
   2.4 At 05h06 Mrs Maritza Jenkins of 7 Plockton Close heard someone fidgeting with the locked kitchen door. Mr Simon Jenkins was at the gym at the time, but on returning home shortly thereafter was informed of this by his wife. Later that morning on leaving the village, he reported the incident to the Security personnel.
   
   2.5 Mr Gert Gouws of 18 Greenwood Way rises at 05h00. It is second nature to peep through the bed room window in order to establish the nature of the weather. On doing this he saw a man within the confines of his property. He alerted his son-in-law and together they proceeded to establish who it was. By the time they got to the rear of the property, the intruder had left. Mr Gouws made the strong assumption that he had left by jumping over the Langeberg Road perimeter wall, launching himself from the precast concrete wall between numbers 18 and 20 where it meets the perimeter wall. On his way to work, Mr Gouws saw the intruder proceeding down Langeberg Road with a bad limp. He assumed he had been hurt when landing on the outside of the perimeter wall.

3. Any intruder is unable to access the village through the main entrance and due to the fact that no electric security fence or motion detection beam alarms had been triggered during the night, the Village Manager arranged for the Association’s service provider to inspect the electric security fence. This was done on the 10th. All the fences were found to be in good working order. The motion detection beams were also tested on the 9th and were in order. It remains a most perplexing state of affairs to determine how the intruder was able to access the village.
   
4. Following upon the afore-mentioned incidents and at the request of the previous Chairman of the Management Committee, the Village Manager has instituted an investigation into the feasibility of installing surveillance cameras at strategic positions throughout the village. The Committee, aided by a security consultant, will consider the matter at their monthly meeting on Wednesday, 16th.
   
5. Over the past week-end, between 17h00 on the 11th and 16h30 on the 13th, the residents at 24 Greenwood Way, on returning from Hermanus, found that their home had been ransacked. They had only informed the cleaning service on Thursday of last week that they would be away for the week-end. There were no signs of forced entry into the house. Whilst they had ensured before their departure that all doors were locked and windows closed, they found on arrival that their bed room windows were open and most of the lights in the house were on. Goods that had been removed from the house were a large television, video camera, normal camera, Galaxy tablet, a Taser gun (stun gun) and his wife’s jewellery box. The matter was reported to the S A Police and Servest Security also conducted their investigation. The possibility exists that the intruder could have gained access to the house by means of a pet door built into a door to the outside of the house. Also in this instance no electric security fence or motion detection beams had been triggered. There were no signs whatsoever inside the particular property or outside the Langeberg Road perimeter wall that the intruder had left the village via this boundary. It is thus a perplexing question how the stolen goods were removed from the village.
   
6. The Management Committee in conjunction with a reputable security consultant will tomorrow evening be discussing these incidents with the aim of hastily establishing a means of curtailing these intrusions into the properties in the Summerwood village.

Chairman: Management Committee                     15 November 2016