Teen charged over car thefts as youth crime rises

A teenager who allegedly stole cars from across northern NSW has been arrested.

About 3.20pm on Wednesday March 27, police attempted to stop a car on Thorburn St, Nimbin, after reports it was being driven dangerously.

Richmond Police District and highway and traffic patrol command officers found the vehicle abandoned nearby on a residential land site on Stewarts Way, Nimbin.

Police arrested a 17-year-old male at Nimbin Police Station, charging him with multiple driving offences as part of an investigation under Operation Mongoose North.

The teen faces multiple charges including obtaining property by deception, drive conveyance taken without consent of owner, driving with a cancelled licence, using a class A vehicle displaying misleading number plate, driving recklessly or furiously or speeding or dangerously, drive while licence cancelled, using uninsured motor vehicle and not stopping when directed to do so.

Police will allege he was involved in multiple car thefts across Casuarina, Wollongbar, Ballina and Nimbin. He was refused bail and appeared before Parramatta Children’s Court on Friday, March 29.

He was remanded in custody to reappear before a local Children’s Court on Friday.

It comes after a spate of youth crime on the North Coast where a 13-year-old was arrested and charged in Ballina with two counts of aggravated break and enter with intent, having goods suspected of being stolen, larceny and breach of bail.

Two more boys aged 15 and 16 were arrested and charged

after alleged car theft, breakins and spraying a police 4WD with pink graffiti outside a North Coast station.

On March 1, a group aged 13 to 16 were arrested and charged after they allegedly stole a Dodge Ram ute from Ballina, broke into a premises, and took police on two chases before being caught on a yacht in Port Macquarie.

Ballina’s Detective Chief Inspector Bill McKenna addressed a community meeting into combating youth behaving badly.

“The majority of these offences are being committed by young people who are very well known to police,” he said.