Crime prevention officer Sergeant Ciaran McLoughlin
Safe home this Christmas! Crime prevention officer SGT Ciaran McLoughlin’s advice
Keep a light on and don’t store large sums of cash in your home is just some of the advice to keep your home safe from burglars this Christmas period.
Sergeant Ciaran McLoughlin, An Garda Síochána’s crime prevention officer for the DMR South region, has advised homeowners to leave “one or two lights” on a timer to help your home to look occupied on dark evenings.
“The most vulnerable time for burglaries is between 4pm and 9pm in the evenings, it’s not actually in middle of the night when you’re asleep,” he said.
He said people should allocate a “time in the evening to lock up and light up”.
“So if anyone is elderly, living on their own, if they could even have one or two lights on a timer switch that it comes on and maybe stay on for a few hours to give the illusion that the house is occupied”.
Christmas can be a time of year when people take out large amounts of cash to have on hand to give to family or to spend on gifts.
Sergeant McLoughlin recommended against doing so, and said that if people really need to keep cash at home, they should install a safe.
“If you’re keeping large amounts of cash, which we don’t recommend, get an adequate safe that’s bolted to a solid wall, so that no one can pick it up and walk away with your safe as well,” he said.
He also warned about online scams and fraudulent shopping websites, saying that if a Christmas deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.
“A common fraud online would be where you might see a lovely pair of boots that were €300, and for a limited time only, they’re down to €35, so they will take €35 from a number of people,” he explained.
“It’s not always a huge sum of money to you, it adds up and €35 is still hard earned,” he added.
Sergeant McLoughlin also advised people to make sure they don’t leave any valuables lying out visible in parked cars.
“We can’t control the opportunistic perpetrator who’s around, but all we can do is try and reduce the opportunity for somebody to make you a victim of crime,” he said.
“I’d also like to wish everybody a happy and safe Christmas from everyone at An Garda Síochána,” he added.
The quickest way to contact the guards for emergency or report a crime is to call 999 from a landline and 112 from a mobile.
