Illegal dirt bikers: Auckland police seize vehicles after investigations into Anzac Day joyride

Police have seized three cars as part of ongoing investigations into a horde of dirt bikers involved in a dangerous joyride around Auckland on Anzac Day.

Three properties were searched, in Takanini, Pakuranga and Ōtara, and the registered owners of the vehicles have been ordered to say who was driving on the day.

Police said the cars were seen driving “in a dangerous manner” alongside the dirt bikers on April 25 - the same day a fearful motorist drove on to a footpath, ran over two riders and was later badly beaten.

“We are pleased with the progress we are making in relation to this incident,” Relieving Area Commander for Counties Manukau East, Inspector Rakana Cook said.

Three properties were searched, in Takanini, Pakuranga and Ōtara, and the registered owners of the vehicles have been ordered to say who was driving on the day.

“Additional search warrants and enquiries are likely and a dedicated team continues to gather evidence through CCTV and witness statements,” he said.

Cook said police inquiries were ongoing and officers would be following up to “ensure we hold those persons driving to account”.

Police earlier called the dirt bike riders extremely selfish and said they have little regard for safety. Cook said the problem wasn’t new and police couldn’t solve it alone.

He called on the parents and family of the dirt bikers to take responsibility.

Footage showed a panicked motorist mount a footpath and hit two bikers involved in the joyride on the Mt Wellington Highway.

The woman’s friend told the Herald she was scared because a group of bikers had broken her wing mirror as she sat in traffic and claimed they swarmed her car.

“She saw a gap in traffic and tried to escape, that’s how she ended up on the footpath,” he said.

The woman continued driving along the footpath before she crashed into a fence and a pole and then stopped at a traffic light.

“Those low-lives then chased, swarmed [and began] smashing and attacking the car” after she hit the bikers, the friend told the Herald.

“The windshield was smashed, the back window was shattered, the car was kicked in all over. They used their helmets, road signs etc. Knives were also used to slash all four tyres,” the man claimed.

“But even worse, during this ordeal, one of those scumbags opened the driver’s door and kicked her in the head and face at least five times. What a tough guy, beating on a young lady all alone in the car,” he said.

Police called the assault “an appalling display of behaviour”, and said the riders fled the scene after the minutes-long horror.

Illegal dirt bike riders allegedly smashed this car after the driver drove on to the footpath and ran into two of them, knocking them off their bikes amid a joyride on Anzac Day.

One of the dirt bikers badly hurt after he was struck says it was the first time he’d joined any joyrides and he had been invited by a friend.

He told the Herald he needed surgery after the incident and would be off work for months.

“I was pretty much thinking when she drove up on the footpath, ‘This is it. [It’s] over for me’.

“[She] ran straight into me. I was under the car as it mounted and drove down the footpath, [with] the car eventually running straight over my leg.”

Illegal dirt bike riders allegedly smashed this car after the driver drove on to the footpath and ran into two of them, knocking them off their bikes amid a joyride on Anzac Day.

The rider said he was flung out from under the car and two bones in his leg were broken.

“What happened after [I was run over], I cannot factually say,” the rider told the Herald.

“I have been told the bike riders only chased the woman because she ran myself and another rider over.

“[It] was a very scary experience, seeing a car coming straight at you going 20 to 40km/h.”

The rider’s aunt, however, defended her nephew.

“The woman should not have gone down the footpath, particularly in a residential address where children may be walking with their families.

“[But] in no way, shape or form do I condone what the bike riders did,” she said.

She said they were a law-abiding family.

“I have never been involved with police up until that day. I [have] fulltime work in a job that I love,” the rider said.

“A friend phoned me on Anzac morning to see if I wanted to go out with them for a ride. I had not made plans ... so decided to go.”