KEY POINTS:
One teenager has been arrested and police are seeking two others after two serious assaults in Blenheim at the weekend.
The attacks come less than a week after three teenage girls were arrested for beating a boy unconscious.
Constable Michelle Stagg said the three teens had been with
an 18-year-old man and his 20-year-old girlfriend on Weld Street before the assault about 1.45am on Sunday.
It looked as though they had been together as one large group and knew each other, she said.
"It sounds like for whatever reason these three have turned on this one guy... His partner has tried to intervene to stop what was happening and she too has been assaulted during the incident."
The man suffered a broken nose and the woman minor injuries.
"She was sort of more getting pushed out of the way and it sounds like she got slapped around the face or something," Ms Stagg said.
Shortly after this incident the same three allegedly assaulted a man, 22, and woman 19, at Marlborough Boys College.
"By all accounts the male victim of that has got bruising and swelling around his face. It sounds like he took a few punches to the face and body."
Ms Stagg was not sure what happened to the woman or if the victims and offenders knew each other.
A 16-year-old was arrested about 3am that day and charged with assault with intent to injure and aggravated assault.
Police were looking for another 16-year-old and a 17-year-old who were known to them, Ms Stagg said.
Earlier last week three girls aged 14, 17 and 15 were charged with assault with intent to injure after allegedly beating a boy at the Taylor River Reserve about 9.30pm on Wednesday.
One girl punched the boy in the face with such force he was knocked unconscious. When he came around the three girls kicked, kneed and punched him, police said.
He was treated for bruising, swelling and grazes to his head and face at Blenheim's Wairau Hospital.
Ms Stagg said beatings by teenagers in Blenheim did appear to be an increasing trend.
"Unfortunately young people and alcohol again - not a good mix and they seem to sort of get together and then decided that, god knows what they decided, but yeah it is a wee theme or trend that's happening."
There had been a similar attack at the girl's college and a few other incidents of this nature in town last year, she said.
"Certainly it seems to be becoming a little bit more common unfortunately." However, it was a small number of teens carrying out the attacks, she said.
"These three that have been involved in this incident are well known to us and obviously the three girls last week they were all well known to us as well."
The two attacks were not connected, Ms Stagg said.
The attacks by the boys came amid a busy weekend for police with 36 arrests and several motor vehicle accidents, Ms Stagg said.
The last few weekends since Christmas had been fairly quiet and she thought the increase may be because people were returning to work after the holidays.
"We have a lot of people that leave Blenheim over that time and go down bachs holidaying etc, so I think it's just a lot of them are back in town really and decided to have a get together obviously and have one too many drinks."
Probably 90 per cent of the arrests were fuelled by alcohol , Ms Stagg said.
Most of the arrests were for disorderly behaviour.
- NZPA
