A kindergarten-age boy was allegedly one of three children who broke into a home in northwest New South Wales while the owner was sleeping to steal her car keys.
“In Bourke… we had a five-year-old boy with two 12-year-old boys breaking into a property and stealing a car,” alleged Paul Pisanos, deputy commissioner of regional field operations for the New South Wales Police.
“I have never seen anything like this in 30 years of police service.”
Police confirmed to WhatsNew2Day Australia that they will allege the three boys broke into the woman’s home at around 2am last Friday and stole the woman’s Mitsubishi Outlander.
The homeowner woke up to the sound of intruders fleeing and police later spotted the vehicle in town and attempted to stop it, leading to a brief chase that was called off when officers realized the age of the occupants. , police allege.
A five-year-old boy was allegedly among a group who broke into a house and stole a car in the New South Wales outback town of Bourke (pictured).
NSW Police’s Paul Pisanos (left), who has a 30-year police career, said he was shocked by the alleged incident (on the right is the lonely Bourke police station).
Police have yet to find the group and the investigation is ongoing, with the NSW Department of Communities and Justice also reportedly involved over concerns about the children’s welfare.
The alleged incident is far from an isolated case in regional cities across Australia, particularly inland ones, seemingly inundated with reports of youth crime including break-ins, car thefts, assaults and vandalism.
A two-week youth curfew was imposed in Alice Springs this week as the city grapples with a wave of crime.
Home burglaries in the city increased 260 percent since 2016 and commercial burglaries increased 164 percent during the same period.
Reports from Alice Springs They say children as young as eight or nine can be seen wandering the streets after midnight.
This is nothing new: Bourke reports from a decade ago describe children up to six years old wandering the streets late at night.
Michael Liddle, an Alyawarre man who has lived in Central Australia all his life, told the New Testament News In January, the night scenes in Alice Springs had counterparts that were equally common during the day.
‘There’s a long queue at Centrelink, a long queue at banks and a long queue at pubs.
‘There has to be a connection there. There is no long line at schools (at drop-off and pick-up time).’
Car thefts leading to accidents are common on the inner city streets of Alice Springs.
In Alice Springs, further west from Bourke, locals say young people are constantly wandering the streets and going out for walks.
In Moree, northern New South Wales, police constable David John Henderson appeared in court this month for the dramatic arrest of a group of teenagers, some as young as 13, who had stolen a car to give a walk, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
The car was estimated to reach speeds of up to 200km/h on the road before police used spikes to stop it.
Police body camera footage played in court showed officers holding the children face down on the asphalt while scolding them with comments such as ‘You little gits’ and ‘How old are you, you little git?’ ?’
One of the boys claimed they were left with a bloody lip and a black eye, although father Const Henderson was acquitted of an assault charge after his lawyers argued his actions in the heat of the arrest should not be judged with hindsight.
In Alice Springs, police are sending an extra 58 officers into the city to patrol during the 6pm-6am youth curfew, although there will be no penalty if you breach it.
The children will simply be returned to their home or a similar safe location, police said.
According to Marion Scrymgour, federal member for Lingiari which includes the central Australian city, that method could be the problem.
“We have to stop beating around the bush here and thinking that these children are being taken home with a responsible adult because in many of these cases there is no responsible adult there,” he said in February.
Ms Scrymgour said she is concerned that if the problem is left unchecked, it is a matter of time before one of them is seriously injured.
Labor MP Marion Scrymgour said authorities must stop hanging around and crack down on youth crime.
Under changes to Northern Territory law in 2022, the age of criminal responsibility was raised from 10 to 12, with then-Chief Minister Natasha Fyles saying that “children of primary school age… “They are not hardened criminals who should be locked up.”
Scrymgour said that while he did not necessarily disagree with the change, it was clear that it had not made any improvement.
He said a wider review of the effectiveness of the Youth Justice Act, which is being considered by the Labor Party, should be a priority to be undertaken within this year.
“I haven’t stopped or been woken up, I just think we have to hurry up and stop thinking that all these measures are working, because they aren’t.”