Northern Ireland

Dungiven shop damaged in ATM raid plans 'much stronger' cash machine

The ATM theft at O'Kane's Filling Station outside Dungiven happened in April. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
The ATM theft at O'Kane's Filling Station outside Dungiven happened in April. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin The ATM theft at O'Kane's Filling Station outside Dungiven happened in April. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

A SHOP in Co Derry damaged in an ATM theft has submitted plans to build a new "much stronger" cash machine.

O'Kane's Filling Station on Feeny Road outside Dungiven was badly damaged in April after a digger was used to rip an ATM from the shop wall.

Plans have been lodged to construct a new cash machine as a standalone unit located in the car park, away from the main shop building.

This is to avoid a "repeat of the extensive damage which occurred during April's attack", according to the planning application.

However, the new ATM would be housed within a "shuttered concrete enclosure" in a bid to make it more resistant to similar thefts.

The application said shuttered concrete "should prove to be a much stronger structure, and even with machinery would take a longer period of time to break through".

While block walls are "easily removed" by diggers, shuttered concrete "has to be hammered to be broken and would therefore resist the types of attack on these machines that have become extremely prevalent".

It follows a spate of ATM thefts using digger machinery in recent months on both sides of the border.

Meanwhile, money was stolen yesterday from an ATM inside a shop and a till was damaged in Co Fermanagh.

The burglary at a service station on Moorlough Road, Lisnaskea, was reported before 7am to police, who believe it happened between 1am and 2am.

Detectives appealed for anyone with information or who saw suspicious activity in the area to phone 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.