KEY POINTS:
A Dutch couple held at gunpoint and assaulted in their campervan in Northland last week have described a distinctive house to police.
While being driven by the offenders around the Moerewa or Kawakawa areas, through to Whangarei, they saw a house with a decorated gate and fence in
front of it.
It is described as having a metal pipe farm gate with a long length of Christmas-style blue tube or snake lighting wrapped around its metal piping frame.
Police are asking for anyone who recognises the house to contact them as part of their inquiry. (Full description at foot of story.)
Officers also say there may have been more than two men involved in the kidnapping.
During their ordeal the woman was sexually assaulted in front of her husband and the couple was forced to use their credit cards to take money out of a bank ATM.
It was reported by the Dominion Post today that the couple intend to stay in New Zealand and are still in Northland.
Detective Inspector Mike Pannett said police did not know how the two men got to Haruru Falls.
He said it was a fair assumption there was another vehicle involved and someone may have driven it away from Haruru Falls after the two men kidnapped the couple.
Mr Pannett said police were studying security camera coverage of the white Toyota van in the Bay of Islands area.
The kidnappers were believed to be solidly built Maori men aged between 20 and 40.
Police said the elder of the two men was more heavily built and had the dominant personality.
Mr Pannett would not give details of the firearm used by the two men when they first held up the couple at Haruru Falls.
He said the men were probably not strangers to crime. "They are not the Vienna Boys' Choir."
He said police still wanted to hear from anyone who may have seen the men and their victims in the white Toyota van around Northland, including Haruru Falls, Kawakawa, Towai, where the couple were dumped, Whangarei and the Bay of Islands area.
The abducted couple gave this description of the house to police:
* Blue tub lights were consistently lit and not flashing.
* The lights were wrapped around the metal struts on the gate in a number of different directions, horizontally and vertically.
* A wooden unpainted or poor condition paling fence ran alongside either side of the gate.
* The fence on either side of the gate was about the same height as the gate.
* There were low bushes or shrubs at either end of the fence.
* There was a parking area for vehicles near the front gate and fence
* There appeared to be no ditch or open drain in front of the house next to the parking area.
* The house behind the fence appeared to be a light coloured and single storey.
* There appeared to be only a short distance from the fence to the porch house, about 4 to 5 metres.
* There was another Christmas-style, lit ornament between the fence and the house, with white and red lights.
* The location of the property is possibly in a semi-rural area.
Anyone with information on this property and information on the movements of the campervan can contact the Police Operation Falls base on (09) 405 2966.
- NZPA, NZHERALD STAFF
