Blitz on petrol bandits

By Rebecca Fraser
THE buck stops here. That was the message on Monday night when Narre Warren police and service station operators joined forces to step up their fight against petrol driveoffs.
Detective Senior Constable Phil Ross also launched a new trial that will allow petrol station attendants to fax through the details of petrol bandits to police when they occur.
Det Sen Con Ross said the new forms would help police collate a database on the driveoffs and develop links between incidents and stolen plates and vehicles.
Detective Senior Constable Justin Cornford also attended the meeting and said the new forms would ask for more detail.
“If it is a clear run off then fill out the form and send it through straight away,” he said.
“People should look for distinguishing features like roof racks, rip curl stickers, different colour panels.
“The more information, the better, basically.
“If people could also note down the direction the car takes off in this would be good.
“As soon as the form is faxed through to the police watch house we can get on the radio and keep on the look out.
“A lot of this is just education between the police and the console operators,” he said.
Narre Warren police expressed disappointment at the turnout for the meeting with only four service station representatives attending.
“We went into 20 local service stations and many people said they were having three to five runoffs a day,” Det Sen Con Ross said.
“Many of these runsoffs are going unreported so hopefully with the new forms and after tonight the word will get out and more service stations will get on board.”
Det Sen Constable Ross said the data they had already collected showed that Tuesday nights and Saturdays were peak times for the thefts.
Ownermanager of United Fuel in Endeavour Hills Sam Khader, who was at the meeting, said it felt good to have the police on the operators’ side and to air their problems.
“It was really helpful to have someone else hearing our concerns and feeling what we are feeling,” Mr Khader said.
“This is really affecting us and people need to know that we have no control over whether the price of petrol goes up or down.
“I don’t get petrol for free. I pay for it so I understand how people feel but that should not make us the target.
“This really comes out of my pocket and we need to work together to stop this problem,” he said.
Mr Khader said he had been using the prepaid petrol system for two years and had noticed a decline in driveoffs but also a drop in ‘impulse’ sales.
“We have had prepaid for two weeks and just change the times around so they don’t know when we will turn it on and off.
“People do get frustrated by it but unfortunately it is the way it needs to be until we can get this problem under control.
“But it is good that we are all working together,” he said.
Sergeant Gavin Buchan of Cranbourne police also attended the meeting and said they would be contacting new car dealerships in Casey to encourage them to place oneway screws into all numberplates.
“These two issues go hand in hand — petrol runoffs and stolen plates,” he said.
“Once we contact the new dealerships we will then move onto the secondhand dealerships.
“Hopefully this will help the issue.”