Teens face court after $10,000 drunken spree

Two 18-year-old men will appear in Tauranga District Court early next week charged with causing more than $10,000 worth of damage in a drunken spree in which they hurled riverstones at cars, schools and a bus.

Police yesterday revealed they had made the arrests following inquiries this into the spree which caused a huge amount of damage in Papamoa.

Papamoa Police Sergeant Phil Gillbanks said the teens allegedly rode on a scooter all over the beachside suburb using riverstones they collected from gardens to smash windows on 10 cars and at two primary schools. Up to $5000 worth of damage was done to a school bus.

"We're talking in excess of $10,000 worth of damage [in total],'' he said.

Mr Gillbanks said the teens allegedly covered the area between Dickson Rd and Evans Rd in Papamoa while riding drunk on the same 50cc scooter.

They had been drinking all night last Saturday night and the vandalism took place between 6am and 7am on Sunday morning.

"We had numerous complaints of damage being found in the morning, Father's Day. That's obviously attracted a fair bit of attention out here because it's created a lot of victims,'' Mr Gillbanks said.

When interviewed by police he said the pair could not explain the crime spree, which included windows being smashed at Te Akau ki Papamoa School and Tahatai Coast School, other than saying they were were drunk.

"It's just mindless and stupid and it's obviously created a great deal of stress for a large number of victims. It has had a huge effect on our community, judging from the number of emails and phonecalls that we've had from our neighbourhood support groups,'' Mr Gillbanks said.

He said there there had been reports of 10 cars being damaged at this stage, some of which had also suffered damage to the interior as the rocks flew through the vehicles.

Both men face 13 counts of intentional damage and are due to appear in Tauranga District Court on Tuesday.

The owner of Bethlehem Coachlines, Neil Jamieson, said the school bus damaged in the attack was parked on the intersection of Dickson Rd and Longview Dr and the repairs would leave him at least $1000 out of pocket. "I think we're going to be very, very lucky to get too much out of them [in terms of reparation],'' he said.

"They tried to smash the driver's windshield which was a driver's curved Mercedes windscreen which is a heck of a price.''

Mr Jamieson said passenger windows on each side of the bus were smashed and the panel on one side damaged by stones. A suitable punishment for those responsible would be to make them complete community work.

"What's ours is ours, it's not theirs to just wreck and take.''

Add a Comment