A Musgrave woman wants people to be more vigilant when parking at Musgrave Centre after her car was broken into while parked at the busy centre last week.
Toni Sweet said she had parked her car at the centre on Monday afternoon, 16 September and went shopping with her son. On her return about two hours later she opened her boot not realising anything was amiss. She was wondering why the boot cover was broken when she noticed her rear window had been smashed and her work laptop stolen.
“I can’t understand how nobody heard or saw anything because they smashed the window, removed the cover of the boot which is quite difficult and would have taken some time, and then took my computer,” she said in frustration.
Sweet, who works in the property industry, is a regular customer at the centre and has shopped there since she was a child, said she was extremely disappointed by the incident. She said she had lost five years of data which had been stored on her laptop. “I am most disappointed because when I told a manager there was no security when I arrived or returned to my car, she wasn’t listening to me and said they had beefed up security in the centre. I had to ask the guys pushing trolleys to call a security guard to assist us!” she said.
After spending the day after the incident trying to get hold of the centre security to see if they could assist the police with footage of the suspect, she was livid when the head of security told her that there was no camera on the floor she where she had been parked.
“Beside losing all my work, I had to get a makeshift window which cost R5000 while I wait for the other parts to be shipped in. I want to make people more aware of such crimes because they only took my laptop and bypassed other items,” she said.
Michelle Shelley, marketing manager at Musgrave centre said the centre had recently employed additional security to ensure the optimum presence and visibility of guards. “However criminals are quick and opportunistic and it only takes a few seconds to break into a vehicle. Most of the parking areas have cameras and security patrol the different parking areas regularly,” she said.
Shelley said over the past month the centre had more than 180,000 vehicles pass through the parkade, with three unfortunate break-ins. “We empathise with the customer for the inconvenience caused, however need to reiterate that valuables should not be left in vehicles as this creates a temptation for criminals to keep targeting shopping mall parking areas. Signage to this effect is displayed throughout the parking area and we urge our customers to be more vigilant with their possessions.”
