A 16-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl will both face court on 37 charges next month, as police ask residents of Dubbo to be proactive in helping the local force tackle a spate of crime within the city in recent times.
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Figures for the first five days of May have revealed alarming numbers in multiple categories, with Orana Local Area Command investigations manager Detective Sergeant Mark Meredith putting out a call to arms for assistance from the public.
The figures provided from May 1-5 revealed:
- 22 reported cases of steal from motor vehicle
- 13 reported cases of malicious damage
- 6 reported cases of break and enter (dwelling) and;
- 4 reported cases of break and enter (non-dwelling)
Those numbers don't take into account the high-profile theft of four vehicles valued at $350,000 from Dubbo Jaguar Land Rover last Thursday night/Friday morning or a rampage on April 20 at a Dubbo motel which saw 16 vehicles damaged.
Det Sgt Meredith confirmed the arrests in relation to the motel matters, with the alleged offenders given conditional bail to appear in court on June 27.
"One motel in particular had 16 vehicles damaged or stolen from, and in total there were 29 around the CBD in that timeframe," he said.
"As a result of our investigations into those and some other matters we arrested and charged a 16-year-old male and a 13-year-old female with 37 alleged offences.
"We are doing everything in our power, and our numbers as far as arrests are so much higher than comparable neighbouring LACs, which shows that we are out there doing our absolute best.
"We are proactively monitoring known offenders, and taking a raft of other measures to try and bring the rates of these crimes down, but we need that assistance from the community to help us do our job to the best of our ability."
The theft of a Jaguar, two Land Rovers and a Range Rover worth $350,000 from the recently-refurbished Wheelers Lane premises continues to be investigated by officers, with the questioning of multiple parties being backed by closed circuit television (CCTV) and forensics as officers work to gather enough evidence to make arrests
"A lot of the crimes we're having reported are opportunistic crimes. Sometimes there's no valuables and they move on, sometimes they see something they like and they try to do a smash-and-grab on it," Det Sgt Meredith said.
"It's easy to get complacent sometimes but we just want people to be vigilant and not give these people an excuse to break into their car, home or business
"CCTV is so important as far as gathering suitable evidence but we realise not everyone has that, and realistically it shouldn't come to a point where people need it.
"But more and more people are getting it and in time it will probably be the norm, it's the same with dashcams in cars, and every little bit of help we can get is important.
"That's why we want the people of Dubbo to come forward with information, either by contacting the police and speaking with us or providing any photos or vision they have. In some cases there's CCTV where the public may think it shows nothing but due to intelligence and data that we've gathered it can come in really handy.
"You can't tell me that there's not people out there who know who the perpetrators are, but for whatever reasion they don't come forward with it.
"We all live in this city so we should all have an interest in making it the best place it can be."