By James Ball, Digital Reporter
11:19am

An 18-year-old has been charged after six stores along Whangamata's main
street were broken into overnight, with the alleged offending ending in a police pursuit, crash and arrest on a nearby road.


Police received reports of a person unlawfully entering multiple stores on
Port Rd at around 1am.


Eastern Waikato area commander Inspector Mike Henwood said the alleged
offender took a number of items, including cash, before police arrived on scene.


"A member of the public, passing by at the time, saw the unlawful activity
and contacted police with descriptions of the alleged offender and the vehicle."


At around 2.30am, a vehicle allegedly swerved into the path of a police car travelling on Tairua Rd.


Henwood said police did not pursue the vehicle due to the manner of driving, keeping observations on it before signalling them to pull over.


"The driver has then failed to remain stopped and fled, resulting in police initiating a pursuit. Some time later during the pursuit, the vehicle has crashed on Waihi-Whangamata Rd."


He said police located a number of items believed to have been stolen from
the Whangamata businesses during an initial search of the vehicle.


"An 18-year-old man was taken into custody at the scene without incident, and there are no reported injuries."


He was due to appear in Hamilton District Court today, charged with six
counts of burglary, failing to remain stopped, and reckless driving.


'Just carnage'

One of the affected business owners Chris Coombe said there was "just
carnage" in the front third of the homeware store Table Talk run by him and
his wife Julie.


"When you put it all together - smashed main windows, smashed side doors, the entire front third, you can imagine the glass just scratches everything - we would say it's probably around the $10 grand mark in our shop alone," he told 1News.


"They've been aiming for money and they've just trashed everything on the way in and on the way back out again," he said.


Multiple weather events, from subtropical lows to Cyclone Vaianu, had made
for a difficult trading period during the Coromandel town's busiest season.


"We haven't had the flashest summer," he said.


Despite the damage, Coombe said the local response had been overwhelmingly positive, with members of the community turning up to help clean up.


"The team of local people - everybody's cleaning it up. It's really good. They're all here queuing up, doing a job."


He said the incident was not just a blow for the business but a "slur on the town" they had lived in for more than 20 years.


"We're gonna have to beef things up a little bit more. There's been ram raids historically, but not for a couple of years now. That whole sort of business sort of fell away, but this is just sledgehammers through glass - a smash and run kind of thing."

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