Break-in No 23 at DA man’s home

Cape Town. 210410. Pieter van Dalen with his report on Eskom. Picture leon lestrade

Cape Town. 210410. Pieter van Dalen with his report on Eskom. Picture leon lestrade

Published Apr 12, 2014

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Cape Town - MP Pieter van Dalen has suffered a spate of break-ins at his Kuils River home, the most recent occurring this week.

The DA’s

deputy spokesman for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said his home in Silver Oaks had been broken into 23 times in 18 years.

In the most recent incident, at 1.49am on Tuesday, his alarm was triggered.

“I could hear someone throwing things off a shelf in the lounge. I asked my wife to get the gun from the safe. Instead she brought the key,” he said.

He feared the intruders would take his two daughters hostage.

“I was at the top of the passage. I could hear a lot of noise in the lounge.

“As I ran there, I could see a guy’s feet going out the front window.”

They made off with the family’s laptops. Van Dalen pursued the two men into the street but they outran him.

To enter the home, the intruders had removed a glass pane without breaking it.

In a previous break-in, the perpetrators had sprayed graffiti on his walls.

Van Dalen said his wife, Erica, wanted to move out.

But Van Dalen didn’t want to move.

“I know my neighbours... crime is on the increase in Kuils River,” he said.

Kuils River CPF spokesman Alton Payne said the area in which Van Dalen lived was not a crime hot spot, although incidents were currently slightly higher than usual.

They were planning to address the problem with a “cluster policing” approach.

Weekend Argus

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