Farmer gives thief ultimatum
Captured on CCTV camera, a thief is given the chance to own up. Jessica Long reports.
Time is ticking for a thief who has been given 48-hours to hand himself in to Nelson farmers after taking $200 from a milk-vending machine.
The deal from Ratabank Farm owners Warwick and Luke King is simple: own up to the theft and work off the cost of the damage to the machine on the farm or face prosecution.
The farmers have a video of the early morning theft, and Luke King says he had seen the offender before.
He posted the Tuesday deadline for the thief on Facebook in the hope of pricking the offender’s conscience. On Monday he released grainy images of the man, hoping someone who knew him would urge him to come forward.
‘‘I then make it public – the video with the full-facial images and everything.’’ He said if the man failed to come forward he would work with police to find the man and take legal action.
‘‘Hopefully he goes, ‘oh goddammit’ and hands himself in.’’
Luke said if the man came forward he would be put to work on the farm to pay off damages to the machine and return the stolen money.
Ratabank Farm part-owner Warwick King said he noticed the self-service milk machine’s lock broken on the walk-in shop floor when milking his cows.
The boutique dairy farm in Glenduan is nestled in the hills about 15 minutes from Nelson. It sells about 150 litres of milk a day at $2 a litre and sees around 60 vehicles drop in daily for the fresh drop.
A closer look at the vending machine early on Sunday revealed the door was jimmied open and money gone. Remembering the security cameras on site Warwick asked his son Luke to check the footage.
CCTV footage showed a vehicle parked at the end of the driveway for about four minutes at 2.20am before driving up the 100 metre stretch of gravel to the farm’s open shop-front.
A man left the passenger side of the vehicle. He kept his head low as he walked past the first camera, Luke said.
The footage showed a Caucasian man wearing dark denim pants, a black hooded jumper and slip on shoes.
When the man pried open the machine he damaged the metal and broke off the locks. Luke was unsure of the cost of damages to the $100,000 machine and said it would need to be assessed.
"That [machine] is a lot of milk at $2 a litre,’’ Warwick said.
‘‘Luckily they weren’t really fantastic locks and [he] didn’t do too much damage,’’ Luke said. He said the milk shop would remain open for business in the meantime.
A note on the vending machine yesterday asked customers to avoid touching the door until police arrived to take fingerprints.
Luke said the burglary was ‘‘frustrating’’ but was a good wake- up call to increase security measures at the family run and owned business. He said they did not want to lose the 24-hour service that had been a drawcard for a lot of customers.
He said extra security lighting, better locks and alarms would be put in place and the machine would be emptied of any money on a daily basis from now on. ‘‘There will be no money on site.’’
Warwick said business had picked up at Ratabank Farm but the theft had angered him knowing there were some people who chose to take advantage of his family’s hard work and their business as a local whole-milk provider.
His family have been in the dairy industry for over 40 years but took a step back from commercial sales about a year ago.
The Kings now own a head of 18 cattle with holstein friesian and jersey cows.
Warwick said they had named each of their cows and treated them like family. His favourites Sweet Pea, Mrs Brown and Blondie come into milk once a day