Bid to trap car thieves backfires

Businessman Mick Quin was so infuriated by the inability of police to catch people breaking into cars that he set a trap. But his plan worked too well.

Last Wednesday evening the Porsche belonging to Mr Quin's wife, Deborah, was broken into in King St, Palmerston North. Thieves smashed the side window and ripped out a $1200 radar detector.

The next night Mr Quin parked his Audi in the same street, behind the main shopping street, Broadway Ave, and hid in the back seat.

He had arranged for a friend to be watching to back him up, but within three minutes of parking and before the friend even arrived, his window had been smashed and his radar detector grabbed.

A startled Mr Quin, who was on the phone to his wife at the time, told her what had happened, leaped out and chased two youths on foot.

Mrs Quin called 111, providing details of what happened and where.

Mr Quin, 50, could not catch the thieves and no one responded to his calls for help as he chased them.

He returned to his car to find that instead of sending a patrol car, police had phoned his mobile, which was still on the back seat, asking him to call them back on 111.

Now he is offering a $5000 reward for information about the thieves.

"I suppose it is a lot but we're looking for a result here."

It is the second time in the past year that his car has been targeted. Last time he lost a radar detector and expensive sunglasses, a total cost with window repairs and cleaning out the broken glass of about $2000.

Mr Quin said he had "no doubt whatsoever" that police were less sympathetic because radar detectors were involved.

"I reported it last year and you can just tell from the body language - 'Here's a guy with an expensive car and a radar detector'."

He said the public response to his advertisement offering a reward had been overwhelmingly positive, with text messages of support and numerous calls including some from other victims of similar break-ins.

"We now know of seven [break-ins] since Wednesday just in Palmerston North."

One victim was Palmerston North car dealer Jeremy Sinclair, who said the situation in the city was out of control with so many break-ins at car yards that dealers were considering paying for their own security force.

Mr Sinclair said his radar detector was stolen from outside a city bar at 6pm on a Saturday. Even though his ute was alarmed and the detector hidden and hard-wired into the car, the thieves knew it was there and managed to pull it out and get away.

"When I reported it to the police they said it would be about the 45th [radar detector stolen] this week."

Palmerston North police area commander Inspector Pat Handcock said police would have liked to have been advised in advance by Mr Quin about his plan to catch the thieves.

There were periodic spates of thefts of radar detectors from cars. He denied that police were less sympathetic than they would be if other items were stolen.