By James Jenkins and Ed Wright
State of the art Apple computers, with an estimated value of £10,000, were stolen from Kingston campuses last week.
The main thefts occurred at Kingston Hill over two separate days, with seven Apple Mac computers taken on Monday February 6 and another seven taken on Thursday 9. Two more were taken but were dropped as the thieves escaped.
A University spokesperson said: “In both cases the police were called and scene of crime officers were present. The police are currently investigating both incidents.”
It is not the first time the University has been embroiled in computer-related controversy.
Last week, journalism lecturer Adam Westbrook was also a victim of IT theft after a USB stick containing personal details was stolen from EM306 along with the teaching computer.
Mr Westbrook said: “They were backed up accounting files, mostly related to my self-employed work. There’s nothing on them that can be used to take money from my account, but it’s still not a nice feeling to know someone’s probably had a good look at your private data.
“There’s a CCTV camera right over the desk the computer was on, so hopefully they’ve got something from that.”
When asked about a possible link to the computer thefts from Kingston Hill, he said: “I think they tried to take other computers from the room at the time, but the one I was using to teach from was the only one not chained down.”
While only students are meant to have access to any computer room using their university ID cards, Mr Westbrook said: “One of the technicians told me the door is quite easy to force open when it’s not locked.”
He added: “I can’t imagine a second hand iMac, with Kingston University written all over it sells for much.”
Kingston Police have been contacted about the thefts and an official comment is expected in the next few days.
In March, The River reported how 70 people were targeted by fraudsters using ‘key logging devices’ to record information students typed into keyboards, including credit card numbers, PIN information and passwords.