ATV thief caught driving, drugged on Desert Rd

Natural Habitats so highly valued the $25,000 ATV, a tracking device was attached to it. With the tracker they were able to determine the path southeast that Chicoine took with his haul in tow.

A man who stole a $25,000 allterrain vehicle from a construction site near Hamilton was later caught by police flaked out on the back seat of his car on the Desert Road.

Urban Chicoine, 48, was sentenced to 22 months in jail and disqualified from driving for 13 months when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday, on charges of burglary, driving while drugged, dangerous driving and driving while suspended.

Those charges arose from two incidents, the first of which began about midnight on Monday, November 20, last year, when Chicoine broke into a construction site on Gordonton Rd, used by contractors assisting with the construction of the new motorway bypass.

He used wire-cutters to get into the fully fenced site.

He then broke into a digger, which he jump-started.

He used the digger to load a Kubota ATV on to a trailer, then used a welder to cut a chain off the trailer, allowing him to couple it to his own vehicle.

Chicoine also uplifted a water pump and some tools, including welders, multi-boxes and hand tools.

All of the equipment, including the trailer and the ATV, was owned by landscaping firm Natural Habitats.

Then he took off.

What he didn’t know was that Natural Habitats so highly valued the $25,000 ATV, a tracking device was attached to it.

With the tracker they were able to determine the path southeast that Chicoine took with his haul in tow – all the way from Gordonton Rd to Whirinaki Rd in Murupara.

That trajectory and Chicoine’s identity were both later corroborated when police obtained CCTV footage of him, after he pulled into two service stations to fuel up.

Unfortunately for the police and the landscaping firm, after he drove through Murupara and into the Urewera Ranges that coverage of the tracker was lost.

However, Chicoine was not off the police radar for long.

Two days later he was doing his apparent best to draw attention to himself as he drove south in his car on State Highway 1, near Waiouru.

As he went through some roadworks, he drove over several orange cones.

This alarmed the motorist behind him, who called the police.

For the next 20 kilometres, Chicoine was unable to keep a straight line and was constantly swerving all over the road.

His speed also fluctuated between 60 and 100kmh for no reason.

He crossed the centre line about 12 times, often with his entire vehicle in the oncoming lane.

On one occasion he crossed over yellow ‘‘no passing’’ lines into the opposing lane with no visibility ahead.

He eventually stopped when the concerned motorist behind him indicated for him to do so.

When the two spoke, Chicoine appeared to be in a druginfluenced state.

He parked up nearby, and it was there that the police found him, lying across the back seat of his car.

He told the police he was tired, and he had to get his passenger to Wellington for a court appearance.

The police summary of facts does not record whether there was a passenger in his car.

In court yesterday, Chicoine’s counsel Seung Youn urged Judge Kim Saunders to take note of his client’s early guilty pleas, remorse, and a positive restorative justice conference with representatives from Natural Habitats.

At that meeting he had apologised to them, and had said he would be happy to work for them on a voluntary basis as a means of making amends.

Police prosecutor Andy Kennedy pointed out that the company sought $31,293 in reparation – the total cost of the equipment that he stole.

‘‘There is only one sentence available and that is a sentence of imprisonment,’’ said Judge Saunders, shortly before jailing Chicoine for 22 months.

She said there was little point in ordering reparation, as Chicoine had no means of paying it.