by Kate Green, RNZ
A German traveller’s motorbike was stolen, stripped then blatantly ridden up and down a street in front of him and his son in the town of Nuhaka earlier this week.
The bike was found at a nearby house — believed to be a Mongrel Mob-affiliated address — but police told the man it would be difficult to press charges.
He and his 17-year-old son, who were staying in a bach, hid in the house after feeling threatened by a group of locals who laughed at them and made throat-slitting gestures.
Police said in a statement the location of the bike, while suspicious, did not prove it was stolen by the home’s occupiers. They gave the pair a police escort out of town.
The man and his son were travelling down the East Coast on their single-cylinder motorbikes and stayed at a friend’s unoccupied bach on Nuhaka Opoutama Road.
They parked their motorbikes behind the bach and woke up just before 4am, intending to watch the Rocket Lab launch at Māhia.
When they checked on the bikes, they found one missing.
“We were quite worried that the second bike would get stolen, too,” the man said, so they turned the lights on, stayed up and kept watch.
The next morning they reported the theft to the police.
At about 8am, the motorbike was ridden past them.
It was completely stripped, “short-wired” and being ridden by “a young guy with a bandana and no helmet, going up and down the road, clearly provoking us”.
The man jumped on to the other bike and followed the thief into a driveway of a “dodgy-as” house, where several people were sitting outside “laughing at us”.
It took a scarier turn when the men began making throat-cutting gestures and he quickly returned to the bach.
Police took 90 minutes to arrive from Wairoa and in that time a black four-wheel-drive with tinted windows passed slowly by their bach, “checking us out”.
“We were hiding in the house, talking to police, feeling absolutely threatened.”
The man said he and his son wanted to leave, but had far too much luggage to travel on one bike, and were scared of being followed.
When police arrived, they were “definitely worried to enter that property,” he said.
They eventually did, and found the bike parked, “completely stripped of everything”, but still rideable.
With the son riding the recovered bike, the police gave them an escort part-way back to Wairoa.
“That was really scary because we were still worried someone would follow us and drive us off the road.”
They made it safely to Wairoa and spent hours ringing around to get the bike moved as it was no longer road legal — it had no plates or lights.
Eventually they found a company that could pick it up from Napier the next day and with the permission of a Wairoa police officer and his cellphone number in case they were stopped, they made the drive south.
They spent Monday night in Napier at a hotel.
“That was really the first time where we felt reasonably safe,” the man said.
On Tuesday, they cut their trip short, pared down their luggage and doubled up on one bike “to limp home to Auckland and then Whangārei”.
“We’re over it. I’ve known New Zealand a while and I didn’t think that would ever happen to me, you know? We were thinking of accidents and breakdowns, but never ever about a bike getting burgled from behind a house.”
They were facing a bill of about $6000 for the damage done to the bike, which wasn’t insured, and have set up a Givealittle page (titled German travellers robbed by gang).
“We kept saying to ourselves, ‘Look, we are alright, we are not harmed, nothing really happened, all the rest can be replaced’.”
The man said local officers told him “nobody will be charged, there is basically no case”.
Despite two cases having been opened — one for theft and one for threatening behaviour — police confirmed there would be challenges laying charges.
“Under the Solicitor-General Prosecution Guidelines, police must be able to locate sufficient evidence to meet the evidential test, which requires sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction,” they said in a statement.
“This includes having an identifiable individual who has committed the offence and credible evidence, alongside a reasonable prospect of conviction. The location of the bike, while suspicious, does not prove that the occupiers of the house stole the bike.
“Final inquiries being undertaken will help determine any further police action.”
The traveller said local officers told him it was a Mongrel Mob-affiliated address, but a police media team spokesperson could not confirm this.
