Latest news with #Tauranga
RNZ News
12 hours ago
- General
- RNZ News
Prolific shoplifter sentenced for nearly forty offences
A prolific Tauranga shoplifter has been sentenced to two years behind bars after being convicted of nearly forty offences. Police say the investigation started with a single complaint through a retail crime data base, with no confirmed identity and no leads. But an officer was able to build-up a picture of the 45 year old woman who was pinching stuff on an almost daily basis. The conviction follows a controversial directive that set financial benchmarks for investigating petrol drive offs, retail crime and scams. It was quickly canned and since then a review been launched of cases that may have been parked up as a result of the directive. Police Commissioner Richard Chambers spoke to Lisa Owen. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
16 hours ago
- General
- RNZ News
Prolific shoplifter sentenced to two years in prison in Tauranga
Police said she was offending on an almost daily basis. Photo: RNZ A woman has been sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of 37 shoplifting charges in the Tauranga District Court. An officer in the Tauranga Retail Crime Unit began an investigation after a single shoplifting report, with no offender identified and no real lines of enquiry, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said. Chambers said from that single report, the officer was able to build a picture of a serial shoplifter, who was offending on an almost daily basis. A 45-year-old woman was arrested in February and charged with offending dating back to September 2024. She appeared in Tauranga District Court on 21 May. Chambers said it highlights the importance of monitoring and following up on what might initially seem like low-level offending. "We know how devastating this type of offending is for our retail community, and holding people to account for shoplifting and retail theft remains a priority for NZ Police," he said. "The convictions in this case were a result of not only outstanding investigative work, but also of the great rapport that the officer has built with local retailers. "Each region is different and policing Districts much continue to have the leeway to decide how their resources are best used, and what their priorities need to be." The conviction comes after police launched a review last week into how many cases of retail crime were filed while a controversial and now scrapped directive was in place. The directive said that from 26 March, the FMC was applying "nationally standardised value thresholds" when assessing theft and fraud files. The value thresholds were: General theft $200, petrol drive off $150, shoplifting $500, fraud (paywave, online, scam etc) $1000, and all other fraud $500. Chambers canned the directive , which he called "confusing and unhelpful" following significant backlash. On Friday, a police spokesperson confirmed to RNZ the national value threshold applied to the prioritisation of lower-level theft and fraud offences was being removed.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
Whakatane launches three strikes rule for rubbish recyclers
Whakatane is getting a three strikes policy for rubbish recyclers, that's people who are rubbish at sorting their kerbside recycling and greenwaste bins. Anyone caught three times with contaminated bins, will lose them for three months. Whakatane District Coucil said at its worst, up to 65 percent of recycling going from Whakatane to the Material Recovery Facility in Tauranga are rogue items. Whakatane District Council solid waste manager, Nigel Clark spoke to Lisa Owen. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
Three strikes and you lose your bin
A yellow-top recycling bin filled with items that are not accepted at the Tauranga Material Recovery Facility where the bins' contents are taken. Photos supplied Photo: LDR Whakatāne District Council plans to bring in strict penalties for those who continually put incorrect items in their recycling and greenwaste bins. Three strikes and perpetrators will have their large yellow or green lidded bins confiscated for three months. Solid waste manager Nigel Clarke recently presented the mayor and councillors with a plan for how to tackle the high amounts of unrecyclable waste making its way to the Material Recovery Facility in Tauranga every week and into the compost being made at the Keepa Road greenwaste facility through kerbside collections. The Tauranga facility reports incorrect items can sometimes make up as much as 65 percent of recycling they receive from Whakatāne district. The average so far this year has been 25 percent. The facility will not accept kerbside recycling from Murupara at all because of the high level of contamination. The Murupara recycling bins must first be pre-sorted in Whakatāne. Clarke said the contractor that recycles Whakatāne greenwaste into compost will no longer accept kerbside greenwaste. It had not been able to sell the finished product because of the large amount of uncompostable items place in bins by households. The council recently had to dispose of over 475 tonnes of compost from the Keepa Road site to landfill at a cost of $143,000. Clarke said people needed to think of recycling and greenwaste as a product that they were trying to sell. Contamination devalued it. Unrecyclable items dumped at the Tauranga Material Recovery Facility from Whakatāne kerbside bins. Photo: LDR "Imagine if you go to the supermarket and buy a sealed bag of potatoes. If you open up that bag and find it's 50 percent soil you're not going to buy that brand of potatoes again. It's the same with our kerbside recycling. If it's full of things that shouldn't be there, the industry doesn't want it." Most households did the right thing and educational programmes did work to a point, but there was evidence that some households just didn't want to recycle correctly. "Some don't want to be educated. Some will purposely hide contamination underneath other items." He plans to launch a greenwaste contamination education campaign in July which will introduce a system in which anyone placing incorrect items in their greenwaste bins will be issued a warning letter and flyer. If a third letter must be issued their bin will be confiscated for three months. The perpetrator would not be eligible for a deduction in rates due to this service being removed. A similar programme for recycling bins was planned for October. Clarke said the problem of kerbside recycling contamination was not restricted to Whakatāne but was a nationwide issue. He said several other councils around the country had taken similar steps to address the problem. Information about items that can be placed in greenwaste and recycling bins is available on the council's website. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
Man critically injured after trapped by fallen tree
Photo: 123RF A Tauranga man has been critically injured after a tree fell during stormy weather on Friday. Police said they were informed at 7.20pm that a man on a tractor had been trapped by a falling tree. A spokesperson said the incident looked "to have taken place at an orchard property". "The person sustained critical injuries and was airlifted to hospital," they said. WorkSafe had also been notified. St John said they sent an ambulance, a rapid response vehicle, a manager, and a helicopter to the property in Pyes Pā just after 7pm. The patient was airlifted to Waikato Hospital. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
