Quick actions help stop machete thief
On Saturday afternoon we had a robbery at a local dairy where a single male has entered the store with a machete and he has threatened the shop owner. He managed to get a very small amount of money before decamping.
Thankfully a member of the public saw him and thought something looked out of place so he apprehended him and held him until police arrived.
As a result a 23-year-old local male is now facing court and has been remanded in custody. For a few dollars this thief could now be facing 14 years in prison.
Police commend the brave work of the man who apprehended him as it could very well have prevented further incidents of this nature from taking place.
If you do confront these sorts of people the biggest thing really is if you do not feel safe, which will be in most cases, just start recording and memorising details smartly and everyone has cellphones these days so take a photo.
In this case the store did have good CCTV footage so we would likely have apprehended the guy anyway but that is not to take away from the member of the public putting his hand up and his brilliant actions.
This was an isolated incident and is not likely to happen again as we have caught the offender and we’re not looking for anyone else.
The dairy owner has asked to remain anonymous.
We had a reasonable week with four burglaries reported and inquires are ongoing. Three of these took place in the central business district area and one in Atiamuri.
We had 12 reports of family violence this week and two of these resulted in charges being laid. These were for trespassing and a minor assault.
At this time of year with the warmer weather people are leaving windows and doors open when they leave their houses and coming up to Christmas opportunist thiefs are taking advantage of it.
Make sure your property is secured before you go out which can even be for five or 10 minutes because that’s all it takes for these people to get in and get out.
The same advice applies when it comes to leaving vehicles.