North's Police Slammed Over ATM Robbery

A lack of police resources is being blamed for continuing ram-raid thefts of bank automated teller machines (ATMs) across the North.

Last night, rural Co Antrim saw the latest incident when a digger was used to force an ATM machine from a supermarket wall off the Main Street in Kells during the early hours of Friday. The digger was then set alight by the thieves.

The culprits escaped after the 3am raid and the area was sealed off while police scanned the area for clues and the digger was removed.

A police spokeswoman said: "We received a report of this incident at 3.15am this morning, 4 December.

"Officers were assigned immediately and arrived at the scene within eight minutes at 3.23am."

However, the theft is the latest in a series of such incidents with an estimated 16 ATM machines targeted since March.

All such ATMs are alarmed for immediate communication of an incident to a manned 24-hour monitoring station - yet police again failed to intercept the thieves.

Just days ago, an Omagh District Policing Partnership member said the Chief Constable should be "ashamed" at the freedom criminals have to move about and commit a series of 'ghastly acts' in the locality.

Cllr Alan Rainey was commenting after a similar ATM theft in Ballygawley and claimed there is a 'serious lack' of community policing: "The Chief Constable is telling us continually about the need for community policing, but talking is no use, we need the personnel on the ground.

"We need a strong continuity in an area where the police get to know the community and recognise a regular police presence," said Cllr Rainey.

"The recent incident last week in Ballygawley has left me really disgusted that these guys can take a digger and commit this act and appear to get away with it on a repetitive basis without detection.

"To drive a digger in at night and get away is shocking. These boys are laughing all the way to the bank that they have pulled off yet another one and left another community without this ATM facility."

Meanwhile, the TUV Leader Jim Allister has commented on last night's robbery: "I am shocked that the banditry of digger theft of ATMs has come to my local village, Kells. The spate of such crime, including its copycat spin off, across the Province is appalling.

"This audacious crime would not have been attempted in the days when we had a fully operative police station just around the corner.

"But, in its folly, the Policing Board has decided to close and sell the station, leaving the village bereft of local policing.

"The opportunity, as this incident shows, is not lost on criminal gangs who now have the confidence to commit such a crime in the heart of the village, safe in the knowledge that any police are miles away."

Last month, thieves failed in an attempt to steal an ATM from a filling station in nearby Ahoghill, which is just a few miles away from Kells.

A reward of up to £25,000 is being offered for anyone who can help catch criminals targeting cash machines in Northern Ireland.

The money has been offered by LINK, the operator of the UK's cash machine network.

SDLP North Antrim MLA Declan O'Loan also condemned the robbery: "This is the third ATM theft incident in five weeks in this area, coming after two failed attempts in Ahoghill and Carnlough.

"There were a lot of similarities between the incidents and one gang may be responsible for all of them.

"Senior police sources tell me that a lot of discussion has been going on between the banks and the PSNI about preventing ATM thefts.

"I have no doubt that measures are being designed which will work but they may take some time to put in place as they involve technologies within the ATMs," he said.

The incident is potentially embarrassing because of a Belfast Telegraph report on Thursday, which said the Organised Crime Task Force was drawing up plans to thwart the cross-border crime gangs involved in the robberies of ATM machines.

It said the PSNI and An Garda Siochana have been working together to try and catch the gang members behind the lucrative thefts with a recently replenished ATM containing as much as £140,000.See: Gardaí Move On ATM Thieves

(BMcC/KMcA)