Serial sex offender arrested after break-ins near campus

On Thursday, London police announced the arrest of Bradley Priestap, a man suspected to be involved in a series of break-ins around the university area over the last several months. The 47-year-old London resident, who has a history of sexual crimes and convictions, faces 17 counts including trespassing by night, criminal harassment, possession of break-and-enter tools, breaking and entering to commit voyeurism and voyeurism.

Dennis Rivest, media relations officer for the London Police Service, said the arrest came at the conclusion of a long process.

“We started this investigation several months ago, and it involves investigations dating back to 2011,” Rivest said.

“Most of the area that we’ve been focusing on is surrounding Western’s campus,” he added. “Western University police and London police sent out reminders regarding public safety at the end of the school year and again in September.”

However, Elgin Austen, director of Western’s Campus Community Police Service, said since the crimes were not on the university, campus police were not involved.

“This has nothing to do with the campus, and we didn’t get any reports here,” Austen said, stressing the campus residences are still safe. “The only thing we can say is that our residences are all card access, and most of the time we have desk people there.”

“An individual like this would stay away from residences because he’s looking for people in vulnerable locations.”

Rivest declined to say how Priestap was caught by the police, but stated,“various investigative techniques were used to allow us to apprehend this individual.”

Preiestap’s arrest echoes that of Timothy Stephen Griffin in December 2008, colloquially known as the ‘Western Sleeper Creeper,’ who was also caught after several break-ins around the Western area.

Mike Arntfield, a writing professor and police officer at Western, said Griffin was caught when his vehicle was identified.

Arntfield explained voyeurs tend to target an area either because of familiarity, or because of a certain victim demographic.

“This certainly isn’t the first case of somebody targeting the housing area around Western,” Arntfield said. “What you have is an environment where there is a […] significant availability of victims.”

“All the factors are there—you’ve got unsuspecting females all often living under one roof, and houses that are somewhat easier to approach. It wouldn’t be unusual to see somebody walking around that area at 3 a.m., as opposed to in a middle-class suburb.”

Arntfield explained while serial instances of this kind of voyeurism are rare, students should still take cautions to protect themselves and their residences.

“While the university is very safe, and in a good area, this can happen anywhere,” Arntfield said. “Exercise common sense—keep your doors locked at night, and talk to you landlord about installing functioning exterior lights.”

Arntfield said a serious security issue for students is social networking, which can result in personal information being accessed by serial offenders.

“People want to be social, but at the same time that’s going to significantly compromise their privacy,” Arntfield said. “I would say exercise caution about sharing information, and exercise common sense with respect to security of your residence.”