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'Car thief' sparks street party
27/08/2006 23:18 - (SA)
Craig Bishop
Pietermaritzburg - "Oh hello. The reason I am inside your car is because I wanted to borrow it to get home."
That was just one of the "yeah right" excuses offered to a CBD resident who found a youngish man trapped in his neighbour's bakkie on Saturday night.
Leighton Street resident John Robinson told the Witness that he had been lying in bed reading about 21:00 on Saturday when he heard a "horrific banging".
"I lay there waiting for it to stop, then finally went to have a look-see.
"I went up the road and there was the suspect inside this Nissan Hardbody bakkie. He'd broken in through the back perspex and then locked himself inside."
An impromptu street party
The suspect was apparently having a good look at the CD collection.
Robinson said that an impromptu street party developed as residents came out to see what the fuss was about, sip coffee and listen to stranger and stranger excuses from the suspect.
"The guy reckoned he was just looking for somewhere to sleep, then that he was hungry and then that he just wanted to nip home quickly in the bakkie.
"Whatever the truth was, he was not very good at his chosen trade," said Robinson said, adding that coffee and biscuits were brought out while they waited an hour for the police to arrive.
The suspect was offered coffee, but declined. The police got coffee.
The cops arrived and the suspect was led away, after the police removed the front face of the bakkie music system from his underpants.
Robinson said that Leighton Street residents were used to odd excuses, like the man who claimed the geyser he was rolling down the street in the middle of the night was, of course, his own.
Then, there was the would-be hosepipe thief who told Robinson's neighbour that, seeing as they were both black, she should keep quiet about the incident.
Hubby is a cop
He would bring her a wheelbarrow which he was planning on "nationalising".
Wrong woman. Her husband is a police officer.
Robinson said: "No, we love this little street and living in the CBD. We are nice people in Leighton Street and plan on having a street party soon."
- The Witness
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