Two thieves who stole £500 worth of copper from a former Dundee College building caused 10 times as much worth of damage trying to remove it, a court heard.
Charles McKenzie, 56, and Edward Carnegie, 42, were caught on Saturday evening after stealing the metal from the Constitution Road site.
The pair dodged recently installed steel shutters, which cost the college a five-figure sum, and entered the disused building using a stepladder.
But they were caught red-handed after the alarm was raised and police including a sniffer dog entered the building. A spokesman for Dundee College told The Courier that the raid was “incredibly frustrating.”
McKenzie, Dudhope Court, and Carnegie of Benvie Road appeared from custody before Sheriff Tom Hughes at Dundee Sheriff Court on Monday.
Depute fiscal Charmaine Gilmartin told the court that the building is for sale.
She said: “Although the value of the copper stolen was £500, the damage caused to the building removing the copper was £5,000.”
The court was told that all the stolen copper had been recovered after the pair’s theft. It is understood that a Dundee College staff member was called down to assess the damage on Saturday evening.
Sheriff Hughes granted the two men bail and called for reports and a restriction of liberty order assessment. Sentence was deferred on the men until September 17.
A Dundee College spokesman said: “News of the raid on our former Constitution Campus is incredibly frustrating,”
“We recently invested a five-figure sum to install steel shutters to ensure all the ground-floor doors and windows were impenetrable only to see perpetrators bring a ladder to get in through an upper-floor window.”
Constitution Road covers 2.3 acres just north of the city centre and comprises two towers built in the 1960s.The Constitution Road campus has been on the market since September 2010.
It is one of three sites, along with Graham Street and Melrose Terrace, which became redundant as a result of the £48 million redevelopment of the Gardyne Road campus.
Firefighters were called to an incident of wilful fireraising on the fourth floor of the building in June.