A string of car thefts in the region may not be linked, say police.
In the last week there have been several car thefts in Wakefield, Richmond and Stoke. That is on top of another three earlier in May, two of which were found burning at the Appleby River.
Police say a high proportion of car thefts in Nelson are for joy riding, and while they’re still investigating many of the recent cases they couldn’t say if there was a pattern or not.
On Saturday night, a Subaru Legacy was stolen from Nayland Rd. It belonged to Amanda Christie’s husband, who is fisherman and currently at sea near the Auckland Islands.
“I emailed him and I got an email back full of swear words,” she says.
“He feels useless because he’s down there, but I feel useless and I’m here.”
She says the car was stolen from outside their house sometime after 10.30pm and it was locked.
“Because he’s at sea, it was empty and all locked up. It’s not our main family car so that’s the only good thing. I’d be a lot more upset if it was our family car.”
Because there have been a lot of thefts lately, Amanda has little hope of getting the car back.
Last Tuesday night, Brittany Jacobsen says her partner’s car was stolen from their Wakefield home, taken for a joy ride and found smashed up on Princes Dr.
Bizarrely, anything of value was either left on the side of the road near Brittany’s house or thrown out the window during the joy ride to Nelson.
“My daughter’s car seat, her toys, our wallets, were all left on the side of the road, along with a full box of beer that wasn’t ours, I don’t know where that came from,” says Brittany.
“Everything from our wallets was taken, but the wallets themselves were left and everything else was thrown out the car window on the way to town.”
Brittany says she is shocked that their car was the one stolen.
“When you come up our street there’s all these cars parked on the side of the road and not one of them was targeted, and our place is on a back section and we have two German Shepherds so it wouldn’t have been the easiest to steal.”
She says the car was locked.
They first found out that the car was missing when Brittany’s partner received a call at six o’clock in the morning telling him the car was found in town. “My partner went to bed about 11.30pm and then my sister, who works night shift, got home about 3.30am, so I’m guessing it would have been between 12 and 3 in the morning.”
Have you had a car stolen from your house in the past month? Email us at editorial@nelsonweekly.co.nz, or call 548 4949.
