Nothing sweet about stolen honey

Winnie the who? An amateur honey thief performs a brazen daylight robbery in Mosgiel on Friday. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Winnie the who? An amateur honey thief performs a brazen daylight robbery in Mosgiel on Friday. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
A Mosgiel resident is appalled after the brazen theft of honey from a community’s honesty box by a group of "feral" youths.

Pat Wright, of Mosgiel, who runs the honey stand, did not hold back when describing the group.

"They’re stealing cars, they’re stealing from everybody, they’re harassing, abusing and the cops are on it," she said.

When she came back from her work as a senior caregiver on Thursday she discovered $61 was missing from the stall outside her Mosgiel property.

When she looked back over her security camera footage, she found the stall had been visited by six youths at 9.30am.

The video shows three stopping to help themselves to her honey.

One honey thief could be heard making an expletive-laden rant about the wisdom of putting lavender in honey, before making an offensive hand gesture to the camera and walking off.

After Mrs Wright posted about the incident on Facebook, her phone had "gone crazy" with support for her and derision for the thieves.

Information about other alleged misdemeanors committed by the youths flooded in to Mrs Wright and one of those caught on camera got stuck into the comments, admitting they were at the scene but denying their involvement in the honey heist.

While Mrs Wright believed the miscreants might have eaten some of the honey, smashed honeycomb was found nearby in Ayr St.

Mrs Wright was worried that there was nothing stopping the honey thieves from coming back and wrecking the stall.

She described them as "just feral" and struggled to understand who would steal honey knowing they were on camera.

She wanted the parents to front up and pay for the missing honey, and take responsibility for their children.

"I have had a gutsful of them, and [other] people have too."

Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, said police were aware of the identities of all those pictured in the honey theft video.

Two had already been interviewed and would be referred to Youth Aid, he said.

--  oscar.francis@odt.co.nz

 

 

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