Thief grabs meat truck Butcher sees red over loss
AN ANNANDALE butcher was robbed in broad daylight yesterday, with a sneaky thief stealing his delivery truck while it was being loaded.
Procut Meats owner David Hernandez and his staff were loading the chilled truck about 8am yesterday when a man jumped in the cab and took off with thousands of dollars worth of meat.
The vehicle had been running to keep the stock at a safe temperature.
Police were yesterday searching for the callous robber, who dumped the delivery truck nearby after stealing cash from the cab. It is not believed he stole any meat.
Mr Hernandez said it was a massive inconvenience for his business on one of their busiest days of the week and he was frustrated about the pro- cess of getting his truck back. “At the end of the day, this is why we pay for insurance. It’s an absolute nuisance though, we have businesses that rely on us, we guarantee our services to them and to have some idiot go for a joy ride, it’s damaging,” he said.
Mr Hernandez said he was unable to work for much of yesterday. “I probably won’t know until mid next week the extent of how much it’s going to cost me, all for someone to take it for a drive not 5km from here,” he said.
“There was cash in the cab from a cash delivery … so yes, there’s money that has got stolen and we did have to dispose of a bit of stock that did not make temperatures. There’s nothing we can do because we can’t jeopardise the health of customers.
“I’ve never heard of any- thing like this happening before. We have had another butcher shop call us and offer a truck to use and I’m grateful for the gesture.”
Mr Hernandez said he feared the thief would get off lightly if caught. “The thing that annoys me the most … is that I feel like the law would be harsher on me for watering out of hours, than … this guy getting caught and getting a don’t do it again card, and that’s if he is found,” he said.
Call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 with any information about the theft.