Te Puna woman chases crazed thief

ROBBED: Self-employed builder Bryce Hickey had his truck stolen with $20,000 worth of uninsured tools inside. With Bryce are baby Jacob, wife Hayley Hickey and daughter Lily. PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER

A Te Puna woman faced a crazed thief as she tried to prevent her husband's truck - and the family's livelihood - from being stolen in the middle of the night.

Hayley Hickey woke to the sound of someone breaking into her husband's Holden Rodeo about 2.20am on Tuesday.

After waking husband Bryce, she raced outside to find a man stalling the vehicle as he attempted to make his getaway. Mrs Hickey threw open the passenger door, at which point the man yelled at her.

"I ran out and the guy had stalled the vehicle about 10 times before taking off. Before he took off, I grabbed the passenger door and opened it. I wasn't thinking, of course, he could have had a gun, and then he yelled at me. I saw an outline. His hair looked short but I couldn't tell you how short. It was pretty dark and it all just happened way too quickly. I just couldn't believe it was happening."

Mr Hickey, who was about 3m behind his wife when she opened the door, then grabbed a cellphone and took off after his truck, but never found it and nor have the police since.

The couple, who have two young children aged 2 and 6 months, were devastated by the brazen theft which has seen the vehicle and all of Mr Hickey's building tools stolen.

The truck was insured but Mr Hickey said the cost of insuring the $15,000 to $20,000 worth of tools was something the young family could not afford.

"With all the other expenses we have in our industry now, the cost of insuring my tools was just too much, I couldn't afford it. Hindsight is good but we just couldn't afford it."

He was just going to have to chip away at replacing the tools which had been acquired over the past 10 years as he needed, and could afford, them.