Car thieves delivered to police in back of chiller van

File photo / NZ Herald

Two men were delivered to police in the back of a chiller van after a spectacular citizens' arrest in South Westland.

Shane Dion Dubben, 24, and Shayden Reid, 21, appeared in the Greymouth District Court yesterday, where they admitted charges of dishonestly taking a vehicle from Fox Glacier on August 22.

The Marsden pair had hitch-hiked from Kumara to Fox Glacier that day, stopping off at the Fox Glacier Hotel for a drink. They then found a car with the keys in the ignition and a dog on the backseat, in the hotel car park.

Dubben and Reid stole the car and drove south towards Karangarua, where a group of quick thinking locals had set up a roadblock on a long straight section of the road. With the road blocked by a tractor, the pair abandoned the car and dog, and headed off on foot.

A short while later the pair, who had made their way around 1km south of the roadblock, tried to hitch a lift but were again foiled when locals turned up, and the men fled into the night.

A police tracker dog was summoned to track down the offenders, however the dog handler was busy with an armed hold-up in Greymouth, and by the time it turned up at 11pm, the scent was too weak to trace.

Dubben and Reid then spent an uncomfortable night in the bush, before a group of vigilant residents spotted the pair again the next morning, walking south along State highway 6, about 1km from where they had last been seen.

Two local men drove up to them and offered them a lift in their venison chiller truck, which Dubben and Reid gratefully accepted. However with no room up front in the cab the two had to climb into the chiller section.

They were driven to nearby Bruce Bay and handed over to the Haast policeman, who had been alerted.

Dubben and Reid were yesterday remanded until November 4 to allow their offending to be sorted out through a restorative justice conference.