By XAVIER SMERDON
THOUSANDS of western suburbs children could miss out on vital sports activities after thieves robbed a Werribee athletics club.
The Werribee Little Athletics storage shed at the Victoria University athletics track was broken into late last month.
President of the club, Mel Utber, told Star she entered the shed on Wednesday 29 January after Wyndham Council’s Australia Day celebrations at the track just days earlier to find one of the rooms vandalised.
Doors were ripped off cupboards and empty boxes were left lying throughout the room.
Aside from a few walkie talkies, the only thing of value to the club taken was a silver briefcase containing timing equipment.
The equipment allows them to record and process every runner’s time and it is lent to schools within the area any time they are holding their own athletic events.
Special Events Coordinator at the club, Noraine Singletary, said the theft had rendered the club unable to hold running activities.
“Thousands of kids use this equipment. Approximately 60 to 70 schools rely on it,” Ms Singletary said.
“And it’s not just Wyndham, we have schools in Yarraville, Newport and even Caroline Springs that need it.”
The theft was reported to police and Ms Utber said the thieves would find no value in the stolen item.
“It’s absolutely useless to anyone else but us, they don’t even have any of the cables they need to use it,” Ms Utber said.
“It’s old equipment, so it’s not even worth anything if they were to try and sell it.
“Now we have to tell all the children that we can’t do our activities anymore.
“We can’t do anything about it at the moment.”
Ms Utber said she was “gutted” by the robbery and the club would be unable to afford new to replace the stolen items, which would cost more than $11,000.
Anyone with information regarding the incident should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
