‘It makes me feel sick’
Young girl left traumatised as gang of dirt bike riders terrorise local park
Gang-slogan-chanting trail bikers left a terrified 12-yearold girl in tears after one almost mowed her down deliberately while she was on a training run.
It comes after a spate of similar incidents in which trail bike riders hooning on Rotorua sportsfields have been threatening children and adults and, in one case, threatening to burn a resident’s house down.
Now locals are fighting back and want something done before someone is hurt or killed.
On Monday, the 12-year-old was on a training run in Ray Boord Park when three men on bikes yelling gang slogans harassed and followed her while she was running.
The girl’s mother was supervising the training session and witnessed the harassment. The Rotorua Daily Post has elected not to identify them for safety reasons.
The mother told the Daily
Post that when
the girl was about 50m away, one of the riders, wearing a black balaclava, came back and aimed at her at speed.
He veered away last minute, coming as close as 2m from her. As he pulled away, he spun out and hit the ground.
“He got up while spinning his bike round and round on the ground and aimed straight back for her. She tried
to run around him, but he was lining her up again,” she said.
A man passing on a bike yelled out and it was enough to startle the rider and he fled.
The woman said her daughter was running with tears streaming down her face. “As a parent, I am so angry there are people in our community who ruin it for our kids.”
They lived nearby and knew the behaviours of the trail bike riders
well. “The noise is intimidating but never to the point where I feel like something is going to happen.”
The girl told the Rotorua Daily Post she ran around the fields once or twice a week as part of her crosscountry training plan but now she did not want to set foot on them.
“I don’t want to. It makes me feel sick.”
A Rotorua man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said two riders targeted him and his daughters while tearing up the fields.
“One was revving the s**t out of his bike and I was worried he was going to go into [his daughter]. I told the girls to carry on and then he came straight for me so I ran at him.”
The man said they exchanged words but he did not want a physical confrontation in front of his daughters so tried to calm the situation down.
Both daughters were crying. “I thought, ‘This is utter b ****** t’ and told them to p**s off and they don’t have the right to rip up the fields and frighten people.”
A nearby resident filmed the commotion.
That resident, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, went out to help and told the riders he was ringing the police.
The riders threatened to burn his house down, he said.
The resident said he and his family had lived nearby for seven years and while bad behaviour from some motorcyclists had always been an issue, it had become worse recently.
He did not allow his children to play on the fields now.
Responses from police and the Rotorua Lakes Council had been frustrating, the man said.
He said he had called the council at least seven times and emailed. He had also called the police at least five times in the past three weeks alone and emailed his security footage.
The council asked him if the riders had damaged the fields and he was asked to send evidence and was told it was a police issue if they were in the carpark, he said.
The resident said he had not seen police arrive or noticed patrols in the area.
He had bought an upgraded $3000 security system after the young girl was terrorised.
He said he came within “split
I thought, ‘This is utter b ****** t’ and told them to p**s off and they don’t have the right to rip up
the fields and frighten people.
Victim in the park
seconds” of hitting a trail bike rider on Petrie St one night after the rider, who had no helmet and a blue bandanna tied around his head, “came out of nowhere”.
Rotorua police area commander
Inspector Phil Taikato said police were aware of reports of dangerous and anti-social behaviour and would target riders who placed the public at risk.
Police were trying to find those responsible and patrols were being carried out in the area.
“We are working hard to hold those who participate in unlawful behaviour to account. We acknowledge this type of offending causes concern and harm in our community and it will not be tolerated.”
Taikato said through CCTV and other means they had in the past been able to identify some of the riders and, in some cases, their bikes had been seized.
“We need as much detail from the community as possible on bikes, riders and locations, as quickly as possible, to give us the best chance at bringing offenders to account,” he said.
Council community safety and wellbeing director Julianne Wilkinson said the council had also received complaints about riders damaging sportsfields and using the reserve as a thoroughfare.
The council was recently informed this also involved threatening behaviour towards those using the reserve for recreation.
She encouraged witnesses to report as much detail as possible.
She said community safety was a key priority for the council and worked with police to share information.
Given the number of access points to the reserves, as well as the speed and nature of the offenders, cameras were unlikely to be an effective deterrent or tool for identifying the offenders, she said.
The council had undertaken work in Thebes St to limit vehicle access to Westbrook Reserve and improved fencing but was mindful that any initiatives to keep motorbikes out could also limit access for legitimate users.
She said damage to the grassed reserves could be rectified during normal field maintenance, so there were no significant additional costs.
Anyone with further information should contact 111 if it is happening now and 105 after the fact. Information can all be passed on to Crime Stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online via www.crimestoppersnz.org. Reports to the council can be made 24 hours a day on (07) 348 4199.