Spate of youth crime ‘disturbing’
A SPATE of youth crime, including drinkdriving and joyriding in stolen cars, has been described by Dunedin police as ‘‘disturbing’’.
Officers swooped in to spike joyriders in an allegedly stolen ute in John Wilson Ocean Dr yesterday.
The afternoon drama followed a long weekend marred by a spate of youth drinkdriving and stolen vehicles in the city.
Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond said police dealt with seven drinkdrivers aged 20 or under, including a 19yearold woman seen ‘‘spinning out’’ on the Southern Motorway who recorded a breath alcohol level of 975mcg.
The woman was arrested at 1.50am on Monday.
‘‘The message isn’t getting through.
‘‘People are still drinking and then driving — particularly those in the under20 age group, where it is a zero alcohol limit.
‘‘That’s particularly disturbing.
Also on Monday, a 17yearold male was stopped in King Edward St, where police found him to be on a ‘‘reinstate’’ driver’s licence, which meant his licence had been taken from him for a previous incident and he had not taken the appropriate measures to get it back.
Snr Sgt Bond said he was forbidden to drive and was made to walk home.
But later that afternoon, he was stopped by police again, driving another car.
The car was impounded and he was given an infringement notice.
On Sunday, police stopped a vehicle in Richardson St about 2.25am, where the driver and passenger attempted to change seats.
‘‘A 16yearold eventually came clean that she was the driver,’’ Snr Sgt Bond said.
She recorded a breath alcohol level of 202mcg and was referred to Youth Aid for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Also on Sunday, a 17yearold man was referred to Youth Aid after recording 379mcg in Hillside Rd.
‘‘Despite being the only person in the vehicle, he denied he was the driver,’’ Snr Sgt Bond said.
Meanwhile, two girls and a boy under 17 were arrested in John Wilson Ocean Dr, in Dunedin, about noon yesterday after they allegedly drove a stolen Toyota Hilux from Central Otago.
Police said two of the youths were allegedly involved in several incidents across the Otago region over the weekend, including three burglaries, two unlawful vehicle takes and a petrol driveoff.
During one of the burglaries in Alexandra, a vehicle belonging to a member of the public was allegedly rammed by the offenders leaving the scene.
A 14yearold female and a 17yearold female are due to appear in the Dunedin Youth Court today and next Monday.
Police were still looking for one person in relation to the burglaries.
Earlier Snr Sgt Bond said the young people had been detained for questioning about several offences that occurred over King’s Birthday Weekend in Dunedin, Palmerston, Cromwell and Alexandra.
‘‘We had been making inquiries into all of the stolen vehicles over the weekend and part of the investigation led us to that vehicle and we made inquiries to locate that vehicle.’’
The ute was travelling about 20kmh when it was stopped by deploying road spikes about noon.
‘‘We used road spikes so we could stop it safely without it turning into a fleeingdriver event,’’ Snr Sgt Bond said.
The incident came after 10 cars were stolen from various Dunedin suburbs and taken on joyrides around the city before being dumped during last weekend.
Snr Sgt Bond said it was likely the same group of young people were involved in all of the thefts.
‘‘They’ll just drive it around, dump it, find a new one, dump it, and so on.’’
He believed no suburb was immune to car thefts.
Caversham, Brighton, Fairfield and Wakari were some of the suburbs the cars were stolen from and Mazda Demios and Toyota Aquas appeared to be the most popular choices for the thieves.
Six vehicles had been recovered by police and were at different stages of being analysed for fingerprints.