Go before you leave home

Loo thefts baffle Bay of Plenty police
Saturday December 16, 2006

Police have had a wee problem trying to catch a cheeky dunny thief. Urinals and cisterns from public toilets and private businesses in the Greerton area have been ripped from the walls over recent months.

Police have named 43-year-old local man, Joseph Williams, as a suspect. Currently of no fixed abode, police believe he is in the Western Bay area and is driving a 1986 Toyota Hilux registration UH5595. Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier said police suspected the urinals and cisterns were being sold as scrap metal.

"Over the past six to eight months we've had quite a number of burglaries and thefts where the property stolen has been scrap metal or similar type materials, especially in the Greerton area where offenders have gone into public toilets and ripped the urinals and cisterns out and sold them to scrap metal dealers," Mr Brazier said.

He believed Williams was responsible for some of the thefts. "Obviously we would like calls from anyone who knows where Williams is or about sightings of that vehicle as we wish to speak to him."

The global surge in the price for copper has also seen thousands of dollars worth of metal stolen from building sites in the Bay. The global demand for semi-precious metals has soared in recent years and copper is worth about $10.50 a kg, up from about $1.40 a kg in 2003. "It's a quantity thing, usually the return is a cash return and it can be quite lucrative," Mr Brazier said.

Tauranga City Council project co-ordinator Paul Casey said the cost of refitting toilets could run into thousands of dollars. "For us it's about replacing with something that is more durable and less attractive to them."

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES