BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOR the second time in as many weeks, Horsford’s Automotive Sales, Spares and Service on Wellington Road has been hit by thieves.
According to Valentine Lindsay, Manager of Spare Parts and Servicing, thieves had entered the lot upon which used vehicles are parked opposite the company’s Automotive Department, removed a number of batteries, radios and damaged the windows of some of the vehicles in the process.
“At about 7:45 a.m. on Monday, January 31, 2011, I received a call from the Service Adviser informing me that a number of vehicles at the car stall, what we call the pen, have been broken into. She said that she noticed some of the bonnets were up and recognised that we would not have left them that way. So I immediately called my boss and informed him of the situation.
“The last time I visited the pen was at nine o’clock on the previous night when I took a car in there and parked it. And while there, none of the bonnets were open; so I ordered one of the supervisors to call and inform the police. When the police arrived we inspected the vehicles and found the side windows of six of them were broken and a number of batteries as well as two radios were missing. Luckily for us, all of them were used vehicles,” Lindsay told SKNVibes.
Lindsay explained that the gate to the car stall was secured and the top of the fence is lined with razor barbed wire, with the exception of a small area to the right of the entrance from where one of the thieves had gained entry.
He also said that on reviewing a surveillance camera, they found that the incident had occurred at 1:56 a.m., but the images were blurred. He however declared that the company has since installed more cameras and other systems to beef up security.
This has been the second time for the month that the Automotive Department had been hit by thieves. The first one occurred two weeks ago after Lindsay had parked his personal vehicle in the car stall.
The manager explained that a man had scaled the fence, removed a TV from his vehicle but had dropped it within the car stall and ran away after he and an accomplice were seen by a passerby.
Police are investigating.
