Ingle Farm man arrested after allegedly damaging Australian Bragg Centre

An allegedly armed man has been arrested after police found a leading Adelaide research facility damaged by a flood, which they say has caused hundreds of thousands of dollars damage.

A northern suburbs man has been arrested after allegedly trespassing and damaging a research facility while armed with a knife, in Adelaide’s CBD on Sunday morning.

Emergency services were called to the $500m Australian Bragg Centre – formerly SAHMRI 2 – on North Terrace at around 1am after an alarm was activated. Police found the building flooded and fire sprinklers going off when they arrived.

Officers searched the building and allege they found a trespasser on level 7.

Australian Bragg Centre in Adelaide. Picture: Matt Loxton

When police arrested the 31-year-old Ingle Farm man, they allegedly found a knife on him.

The man has been taken to hospital for a medical assessment and is expected to be charged with serious criminal trespass and property damage.

“It is unclear how the man gained access to the building at this time and the investigation is ongoing,” police said.

An SA Police spokeswoman told FIVEAA the flood caused “hundreds of thousands of dollars damage”.

Premier Peter Malinauskas said while the building suffered extensive damage, most of it occurred in areas occupied “by administrative functions within the centre”.

“So we don’t anticipate it will have an effect on clinical services,” he said.

“A number of the floors at the Bragg centre are occupied by SA Health doing admin work behind the scenes, that’s where most of the damage is.

“I think other, more critical areas of the building have been isolated.”

The centre is a purpose built biomedical development that is set to be home to leading cancer research institutes. It was also due to house the first clinically dedicated proton beam precision therapy centre in the Southern Hemisphere.

But last year, plans to operate the first such unit – in a specially designed, fortified, four-storey concrete bunker – were left in ruins after an embattled Chinese-backed US company was sacked from the crisis-hit project.

Anyone with further information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at www.crimestopperssa.com.au or phone [phone].