UK COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM SCHOOLSKettering News - Kettering Today: News, Sport, Jobs, Property, Cars, Entertainments & MoreSchools targeted in series of raids
A GANG of thieves is believed to have targeted three schools in less than three hours.
Meadowside Primary School in Burton Latimer, St Edward's School in Kettering and St Mary's Primary School in Kettering were all raided between 3.15pm and 6pm on Thursday.
Computers and other equipment was stolen in the burglaries, which police say could be linked.
The main Christmas production at St Mary's School was hit by the burglary becuase one of the laptop computers stolen had crucial sound effects and music on it.
Headteacher Jonathan Gardiner, who discovered the theft, said: "It was terrible; they forced their way in through a rear door and stole around ?3,000 worth of equipment.
"We had to apologise to parents coming to one of our shows because of the missing music and sound effects. It is disgraceful and especially the children have been hurt by this."
The school built a tall fence three years ago to keep out vandals and thieves, before being forced to tear it down after it was deemed too high by local planning officials.
Meadowside headteacher Pam Kirkland said: "It's the children who suffer. We have reminded all staff of security procedures."
St Edward's School was unavailable for comment.
All the schools had laptops stolen in the attacks, and a school in Flore near Northampton, confirmed it had been burgled at 10pm the same day.
Police said three other schools suffered break-ins in the area between October and December, two in Corby and one in Wellingborough, but had no further details about them.
As a result, police cannot rule out that a group may have also been involved in 11 other school burglaries in the county in the past 10 weeks.
Insp Steve Lingley, of Northamptonshire Police, said: "We are investigating a series of school burglaries during the last ten weeks. We are analysing the intelligence we have obtained from each incident. Laptops and projectors have been stolen in what appear to be targeted thefts from the schools."
20 December 2005