Burglary alert after man in black spotted on street

Residents of a Wigan street are warning others to be careful following a number of attempted burglaries in the area.
Walter Scott Avenue, WiganWalter Scott Avenue, Wigan
Walter Scott Avenue, Wigan

On several occasions, a man dressed in black has been spotted in the Whitely area, peering into houses or heading round the back of properties in the area.

One of the residents of Walter Scott Avenue, who asked not to be named, described how her house was nearly broken into in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon.

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She said: “My husband had gone out about 1.30 and had taken our son with him while our oldest two children played in the front room.

“I had been working nights so I went upstairs for a nap. Our next door neighbour saw a guy coming across our drive dressed completely in black. He watched him go down the side of our house.

“He said he stayed there for a significant amount of time before he came running back out and jumped into a waiting car. He must have seen my daughter in the kitchen. She said she didn’t see anything but it would have really scared her if she had.

“But if she hadn’t been in the kitchen the man might have got in round the back while my kid’s were there and I was upstairs.

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“My neighbour came round at about 5pm and told us what had happened and we reported it to the police.

“Apparently the same thing had happened to a lady the Monday before at a similar time but they smashed her back window and were just about to go in but were scared off.”

According to the resident, there have been several similar sightings in the area of a man dressed in black.

But despite pleas to the police, she said they had not been able to step up patrols in the area.

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She said: “My husband saw someone of a similar description looking in the window of next door but one. He was dressed all in black and was looking with a torch. When he saw my husband he ran off and got into a waiting car.

“There is no one patrolling the area so we have all spent a few hundred pounds installing CCTV cameras which is a lot of money just before Christmas. We are trying to make our homes safe because they don’t care.

“We all have alarms but these have all been happening in the middle of the day and if you are in then they obviously aren’t on.

“There have been four burglaries at least in the past six months - one of my neighbours has been done twice - but I haven’t seen the police here once. They just don’t care.”

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