GONE TO GROUND
Just where in NZ are those wayward British tourists? Virginia Fallon investigates.
THE beautiful Maungakotukutuku Valley keeps its secrets.
Those of us who grew up on the Ka¯ piti Coast, north of Wellington, knew the ‘‘Mungatooks’’ was the place to go for illicit boozing, smoking and fast driving, its stunning scenery the perfect backdrop.
The hidden hills behind Paraparaumu kept secrets and hid sins but now, could they be hiding something far more interesting than teenage adventures?
Could they be hiding THE British tourists?
On the other side of the world, the UK media has kept pace with the unruly band of travellers, reporting yesterday that Tina Marie Cash – who is sevenmonths pregnant and pleaded guilty in the Hamilton District Court to stealing sunglasses, rope and four cans of Red Bull from an Auckland service station on Wednesday – has been vomiting blood since her arrest.
While Kiwi locals countrywide have taken to posting sightings and suspected locations of the group who – if you believe social media – can be in both the North and South Island at the same time, Cash was telling The Daily Mail she was too afraid to visit a doctor because her family is receiving death threats and sexist slurs, and alleges a $5000 bounty has been put on the head of their 18-year-old son.
Family patriarch James Johnson also told The Daily Mail a now-viral video, in which a child in the group threatens to ‘‘knock the brains out’’ of locals on an Auckland beach, was taken out of context.
‘‘Our seven-year-old grandson was hit at the beach. We asked ‘could you stop hitting him and pinning him against the tree’, and they called us all sorts of names and threatened us,’’ he claimed. ‘‘That’s why we couldn’t pick the rubbish up.’’