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A ram smashed its way into an office building in Christchurch over Labour weekend, leaving upturned tables, broken windows and a big clean-up for staff.
Police believe the ram had come from the Aidanfield area and had been “on the run for three days” before it was found inside the Comcare Trust building on Lincoln Rd, Addington, about 10am on Saturday.
“It’s just totally unbelievable,” said Comcare Trust chief executive Lindsey Webber.
“There was quite a lot of sheep poo,” she said of the aftermath, with the reception area smelling like a farm.
The ram broke through a ground-level window. It got into meeting rooms inside the office, where it broke more tables, then smashed through a partition, leaving “glass everywhere”, she said.
Comcare Trust provides mental health and addiction services.
Christchurch City Council head of regulatory compliance Tracey Weston said it was holding the ram while trying to find its owner.
Webber said she received a phone call from the building’s security company on Saturday morning telling her the alarm had been tripped, and animal control and police were on
the scene “after a sheep had broken in”.
A police spokesperson said they received a report a sheep had run onto the road and into a building on Lincoln Rd just before 10am.
“What we think might have happened is that it saw its reflection in the mirrored glass and then just went to attack itself,” Webber said.
“I believe that the ram is okay. Luckily, no one was in the building at the time because it’s the weekend.”
She went to the building immediately after the incident. The building was secured, and cleaners tidied up, ready for staff to return to work on Tuesday. The damage was covered by insurance.
A missing pane of glass and a boarded-up window were the only evidence of the incident remaining on Tuesday morning.
“With the alarms and the noise and everything else, it must have been very scared.
It must have been awful,” Webber said.