The 73-year-old man woke up in the early morning and realised that his mobile home was being towed away by a group of thieves in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
An elderly man was left stunned when he woke up to find thieves were in the process of stealing his caravan. The 73-year-old man had been sleeping in the caravan outside the home of his son in Shepparton, in Australia’s Victoria state.
Being in a frantic state when waking, he called the police at around 5.30am from inside the vehicle while it was being towed up the road. When they got up the road, they reportedly unhooked the caravan. When cops arrived at the scene they spotted the thieves getting into the Nissan Navara that they had used to tow the vehicle away. Though the offenders made a run for it, cops managed to seize them after a wild car chase.
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In a statement, Victoria Police said: “Officers attempted to intercept the utility but it sped off, crossing onto the wrong side of Richmond Street and was last seen heading east on Channel Road. Fortunately, the victim was not physically injured.”
According to police, the Nissan had also been stolen from a town in south-west Melbourne in February, before it was involved in another caravan theft. It was also connected to the theft of a trailer, a vehicle and a motorbike between March 6 and 13.
Police are appealing for more information and have released images of the vehicle in the hopes of drumming up some leads. This comes after police who stopped a car towing a suspected stolen caravan were shocked when they discovered the driver was an 11-year-old boy.
In Yorkshire in March last year, police stopped a BMW X5 as it towed a caravan along the M1 near the Hook Moor Interchange near Garforth, West Yorkshire. When they strolled to the window of the car they were shocked to find a pint-sized schoolboy in the driver’s seat.
A spokesperson for the force said they received a call saying a caravan had been stolen from a holiday site near Thirsk and was being towed away by a black BMW.
They said: “We were able to track the BMW, which was also using cloned registration plates, travelling south on the A1. “Forty five minutes after the caravan was reported stolen, we stopped the vehicle on the M1 after it left the A1 at Hook Moor Interchange near Garforth. Nothing prepared us for finding the schoolboy sat at the wheel. A search of the car also revealed equipment typically used by suspects to carry out thefts and a selection of vehicle registration plates.”
A boy was arrested on suspicion of a number of offences including theft, burglary, going equipped for theft, and motoring offences including dangerous driving. He was questioned and released on conditional police bail to allow further enquiries to be carried out.
The North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said no-one was injured during the incident. They added: “Thanks to the quick work of our skilled roads policing officers, our control room and intelligence team working in the background, the rightful owners have been updated their caravan has been found.”
