Culprit caught 'red' handed

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 18, 2 October 1984, Page 1

Culprit caught 'red' handed

A recent visitor to Ohakune failed to escape retribution following an offence he had committed, but the discovery of the offence and his idenitity was due more to an unusual coincidence rather than any highly sophisticated detection work. The visitor decided, during a series of nocturnal perambulations around town, that he would remove the red light from the roof of the local traffic officer's car. Graeme Cole had parked his official car in the driveway of his home overnight and only discovered the roof light was missing the following morning. In the meantime our

visitor, armed with the trophy from his night's exploits had returned to his motel. The following morning, after he had checked out and headed for the ski slopes a member of the motel staff — none other than traffic officer Graeme Cole's wife, Barbara — looked under the visitor's bed and discovered, of all things, the missing red 'trophy'. The visitor was traced and the law took its course. "It was settled quite amicably out of court," said traffic officer Graeme Cole. "The guy just had no satisfactory explanation to account for a Ministry of Transport's red vehicle light under his bed!"