Ram-raid youths reoffend

• Published date: 11 May 2022

Inspector Jim Wilson told the Herald most of the identified offenders are younger than 17, and police intelligence shows it’s “likely” they are involved in more than one incident

It comes after a weekend of “mayhem” saw children as young as 11 driving stolen cars, leading police on wild goose chases across Auckland.

On Saturday a group of eight children broke into and stole two vehicles before driving from Takanini towards Waikato.

Two stolen vehicles were spotted exiting at the Te Kauwhata off-ramp where one was spiked by police.

While being monitored by the police Eagle helicopter, the child driving the stolen vehicle crashed into another car, seriously injuring the driver.

The chaos continued when a number of youths fled from the crashed car and jumped into the second stolen vehicle. They changed direction and headed back to Auckland on State Highway 1 towards Waitematā, and police attempted to spike the car.

The child driver avoided the spikes, and intentionally tried to drive into police, before doing a U-turn and trying to flee — at which point the vehicle was successfully spiked.

On Sunday, seven youths were arrested for attempting to steal vehicles from members of the public on State Highway 1 in Wellsford.

A member of the public observed a suspicious vehicle in Kaiwaka township just before 1pm. It didn’t have any registration plates and was being driven at speeds in excess of the speed limit.

When the car changed direction and headed north again, road spikes were deployed near the northern end of Dome Forest. After hitting the spikes, the car came to a stop on SH1 in Wellsford, near Wayby Valley Rd.

A group of children then...