The number of students nabbed during the first week of a police sting on truants has horrified a senior officer and has included an errant 12-year-old primary school pupil.
Police are cracking down on students plundering shops while bunking school in Whangarei, where the truancy rate is running at up to 7.5 times above the national average.
In the first 45 minutes of the month-long Operation Cleanstreets, which started on Monday, police around Whangarei had caught 12 students who should have been in class. That included two who had been stood down from school and they were taken home. A further 13 students were returned to school on Tuesday, another dozen on Wednesday and 17 yesterday. A further group of 20 scattered when seen by officers in the Tikipunga area.
The Whangarei police youth crime unit's Sergeant Daniel Cleaver said truancy in Whangarei was a big problem, with some schools reporting up to 30 per cent of their students being truant per day. The national average for unexplained absences was four per cent per day.
But he was still horrified by the number of students blatantly avoiding being in class.