Brazen raiders hit the 'pane barrier' in Sydney

Sydney's 'Manly Daily' newspaper of 17 February 2000 bore the headline: 'Brazen raiders hit the pane barrier', in describing the story of how laminated glass security windows had foiled three masked bandits. The robbers had attempted to break into a local jewelry story over a time period of three minutes using sledgehammers on the laminated glass windows - to no avail - and had to leave the scene of the crime empty-handed.

The store's owner told LGN that he had been robbed twice before taking the advice of local glazier O'Brien Glass of Sydney, and installing 'anti-bandit glass'. The type of 'anti-bandit' glass used in Australia for jewellery stores is 11.52 mm laminated glass (5 mm annealed + 1.52 PVB + 5 mm annealed). Although the laminated glass cracked, it stayed in the frame and did not shatter, preventing forced entry. This meant that the jewellery store was enabled to stay open for business immediately following the incident. O'Brien Glass came to repair the shop front glass within hours of the attempted break-in.