Long arm of the lawn!
Detectives help to create a burglar-beating garden – with some ideas from a special branch of privet investigators
THE latest weapon in the fight against crime is... a privet hedge.
It’s one of the features recommended to deter burglars as a new garden is unveiled to show how green-fingered householders can use the land around their house as an extra line of defence against burglars.
As well as impenetrable hedges, other suggestions include choosing plants with thorns or spiky leaves to put off crooks or tall, thin trees such as cypress varieties that provide nowhere to hide.
Gravel pathways would make it impossible for anyone to silently creep towards the house, while pergolas can be designed with rotating posts to make them impossible to climb.
With RTÉ’s Prime Time revealing earlier this year that some gardaí believe burglaries have reached ‘epidemic levels’, this crime-busting garden design – one of the exhibits at a British flower show next month – has a wealth of ideas for security-conscious homeowners.
Sergeant David Lucy, of the Metropolitan Police’s Designing Out Crime Unit, said: ‘Many of these simple, affordable tips can prevent burglars getting inside homes. Some people will be cynical but we have to be clever managing police resources. If this stops another elderly lady being a victim, then it’s worth it. ‘We’re doing this for the right reasons.’ Secured By Design, the crime prevention group that contributed to the £20,000 (€22.7k) cost of the garden – which will be on show at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Hampton Court Flower Show from July 3-to-8 – said: ‘This can free up officers to catch criminals.’
The 27ft by 18ft garden was designed by horticultural students Jacqueline Poll and Lucy Glover, who said: ‘This has made me much more safety-conscious about my own garden.’
Other tips include robust steel boundary fencing that cannot be kicked in or cut, dusk-to-dawn low-voltage lights to ensure visibility in the garden at night and wi-fienabled CCTV cameras.
Spiky plants can also be grown on shed roofs to stop intruders using that as a way into the house.
And to prevent burglars getting into the outbuildings themselves, police suggest alarmed padlocks.