Surge of car break-ins concern Peel Health Campus staff

The female nurse, who didn't want to be named, told the Mail that parking at work has become a large source of anxiety for her and a few of her coworkers.

She said that for the last few months in a cycle of every three or four weeks, there had been several car break-ins, which resulted in staff being largely out of pocket and frustrated,

"They are hitting a number of cars each time," she said.

"The feedback we are getting is basically to 'park at your own risk'."

The nurse recalled a time after one of the break-ins, which occurred during a long nightshift.

"Five cars were broken into in a particular carpark at one o'clock in the morning," she said.

"We were told 'cars have been broken into - go and see if one of them is yours', so we went out and that was it, we were kind of left with nothing, the police were called and we were given the crime number (incident number)."

The woman added that casual staff who had their cars broken into were having to pay for damage barely covered by their salary.

"One of the girls had her car damaged and she works casual - the cost of her coming to work - it's more than she's being paid for.

"One of the doctors was also broken into during the day, with their overnight bag taken.

"If they came with us to the cars to sort it out they'd see all the glass and all the mess.

"We have a lot of worry parking there."

The nurse said some of the staff had suggested a fence being built around the carpark which had taken one of the biggest hits from the thieves, but were told it wasn't something the hospital was planning to do.

A Peel Health Campus spokeswoman said the hospital was aware of several incidents where cars had been broken into in recent months.

"It's extremely disappointing that there are people in our community who damage property and steal from hard working health staff," she said.

She said the hospital had been working with police including providing CCTV footage to help identify the perpetrators.

She continued that fencing had not been at the forefront of consideration because staff safety was the hospital's priority over property damage.

"Vandalism to staff cars is unwanted but staff safety is our number one priority," she said.

"As such, we have security escorts available to walk staff to and from their vehicles as well as the option for night shift workers to park directly out the front of the hospital."

The spokeswoman added that risk assessments at other hospitals in WA had not identified fencing as an effective security control measure for staff safety, but that Peel Health Campus would be exploring all options for the new staff car park and the hospital was in the process of conducting its own assessment.

Senior Sergeant Neville Beard from Mandurah Police said he was aware of the situation and that police were working towards a solution.

"I'm aware of what's happened there recently," Snr Sgt Beard said.

"We caught two offenders and brought them into custody - when they left custody the crimes started again.

"They are in custody again and we believed the break-ins will have dropped off and it looks like they have."

He added that with offences such as these, police could often find patterns that lead them to an offender or offenders.

"With some offences it's not hard for us to... attribute them to a particular offender or group of offenders and we did that," he said.

Snr Sgt Beard added that when it comes to car break-ins there were a few recommendations police had for the public.

"The main thing for us is make sure your cars are locked.

"Don't leave anything in your car that would give a person a reason to break in.

"Most car break-ins are opportunistic, they see a phone, bag or money on the seat or centre console. Make it less attractive for people and park near a streetlight and where there is security."