"Conveniently, one of our Crime Squad units was nearby and did some areas for the silver Commodore – until they realised they were in fact driving a silver Commodore and had earlier done a U-turn to provide some prevention advice to a lone female walking on Godley Road!
"Excellent catch by Crime Squad (of themselves!), and equally good work earlier to look after a potentially vulnerable female walking the dark streets."
West Auckland residents saw the funny side, with many praising police while also giving them some well-deserved banter.
"Imagine the face drop moment when they realised!" one person wrote.
Another said: "Some top quality investigative work there."
"Excellent ... so funny but great the person phoned it in!"