A KEIGHLEY school which was subjected to two destructive burglaries in 2016 has been raided yet again.

Burglars targeted St Joseph's Catholic Primary for a third time in the space of 12 months last Monday, (March 20) stealing thousands of pounds worth of laptop computers and inflicting huge amounts of damage in the process.

John Devlin, the executive head teacher of St Joseph's and also of Our Lady of Victories (OLV) Catholic Primary, said the latest crime had upset many children, staff and parents.

"We've had a lot more damage done to the school than last time, so it'll be much more expensive to put right," he added.

"The problem we have is that the better we are at hiding valuable equipment the more things they break because they spend longer trying to find them.

"It's obviously people who've done this sort of thing before, and they know what they're doing.

"They wrecked exterior fencing and gates and smashed a number of doorways to pieces, one of which cannot be repaired so will need to be replaced entirely, which will take weeks.

"That alone means we've needed to change the way children are collected from school at the end of the day, as they now have to use a different door. It's very inconvenient.

"Seventeen laptops were taken, which means children will be left without access to IT equipment for quite a while until they can be replaced.

"There are a lot of headlines at the moment about school budgets being tighter than ever, which is absolutely true.

"We do what we can to make sure we provide the best equipment and best education for our children, but sadly the burglaries are making things much harder for us.

"We're a Catholic school, it's Lent and we teach forgiveness, so we pray that the people responsible learn not to commit these crimes."

Mr Devlin said on this occasion the school's cherished Albus Cubus television studio, which uses technology to help stimulate and enhance the children's learning, had escaped destruction.

He said this was probably because expensive items are no longer kept in the studio.

The 2016 burglaries at St Joseph's, in Ingrow, both took place in March of that year. The criminals initially got away with 25 laptops, before returning nine days later to steal equipment used to kit out the TV studio.

Responding to the most recent incident, which happened at about 11pm last Monday, a spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: "Police are continuing to investigate this incident and are working closely with the school and the local community to identify any possible suspects.

"We believe the suspects may have arrived and left in a vehicle and anyone who saw any suspicious activity in the Queens Road area between 11pm and 11.30pm on March 20 is asked to contact the Keighley Area Neighbourhood Team on 101, quoting crime reference 13170128239.

"Information can also be passed anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555111."

Mr Devlin warned Keighley district schools to be vigilant, adding that the other school he has responsibility for – OLV – has already tightened its own security.

He said the stolen laptops were all marked as being the property of St Joseph's, so urged Keighley people to be on the lookout for anyone trying to sell them off locally.