A charity boss wants to hand over “chilling” CCTV footage to police of an intruder stealing three charity boxes and £3,000 worth of IT equipment at their sports centre.
Last Sunday morning, a man broke into Moray Sports Centre in Elgin after getting through the backdoor of the facility.
The stolen equipment includes a personal laptop, Apple Mac, two mobiles, camera and two touchscreen devices used to offer food in their cafe.
Meanwhile, charity boxes for MacMillan Cancer, Abbie’s Sparkle Foundation and the Moray Sports Foundation – which operates the centre – were also stolen with around £250 inside in total.
‘It was chilling to see it all unfold on CCTV’
Moray Sports Centre CEO Iain Stokes believes the organisation’s footage of the “disgusting” offence will aid the police’s investigation.
Last year, Mr Stokes joined the charity after being attracted by the indoor tennis facility project which is ongoing.
Mr Stokes said: “It is chilling to see a bearded guy on CCTV manage to somehow get into one of our doors around the back.
“He got his way through the kitchen which set off the alarm. For some reason even though the alarm went off, the call centre for the provider missed it.
Mr Stokes added that the man did “a quick run around the centre”. Then he “grabbed stuff and then waited outside in the dark”.
“He quickly realised that no-one was coming and went back for 20 minutes to lift everything that looked electrical that wasn’t hard wired and stole the charity boxes as well which is disgusting.”
We are ready to handover CCTV of the offence to the police to help their investigation.
Iain Stokes
He added: “We are ready to hand over CCTV of the offence to the police to help their investigation.
“They haven’t looked at the images yet as they say they are busy.
“The CCTV has captured half of his face, you can see his build and his car.
“This break-in has given us reason to double up our security even more.
“Police could come in for 20 minutes to see the footage which could be key in helping their investigation.
“The staff are really upset about the break-in and feel singled out especially with the charity boxes being stolen.”
Police confirmed they are investigating the break-in.
A spokeswoman said: “We received a report of a break-in and theft from a premises on Linkwood Road, Elgin, around 12.20pm on Sunday, 25 September.
“Inquiries are at an early stage and ongoing.”
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