£3000 Bus Converted By Twelve-Year-Old Truant

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 10

£3000 Bus Converted By Twelve-Year-Old Truant

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND. June 29. A 12-year-old boy, playing truant from school this afternoon, drove a £3OOO bus. the property of the Whenuapai Bus Company. Ltd., from the central bus terminal in Auckland to Mount Wellington, picked up a 14-year-old friend, and continued to Mangere—a total distance of about 15 miles.

The two boys were finally caught in the middle of a paddock at Mangere by Traffic Officer Norman Robertson, of the Transport Department, who said that earlier he had nearly been run over by the vehicle.

The bus had been left in the central bus terminal at 10 a.m.. with the key in the ignition. At 2.40 p.m, it moved off. An Auckland Eus Company driver gave way to the vehicle as it moved across the terminal. “I suddenly realised that the driver was noone I knew,’’ he said later. ‘‘He was not wearing a cap or coat, and he looked very young.”

Mr A. W. O’Keefe, who was to have taken the bus on a routine trip at 3.30 p.m., saw the vehicle moving, but thought a relief driver was taking it to another parking place. “I never suspected that anything was wrong until I went to collect the bus.” he said.

Two patrol cars from the Auckland Criminal Investigation Branch, three cars and a motor-cycle patrol from the City Council traffic department, and three cars from the Transport Department scoured the countryside at St. Heliers, and Otahuhu. About 4.30 p.m.. Traffic Officer Robertson was driving down Massey

road. Mangere. when he saw the bus coming toward him.

He got out of his car. stood in the roadway, and waved for the bus to stop. It kept going after he had leapt aside. He scrambled into his car again, and set off after the bus which, he said later, was being very well driven. The boys drove into a side road and stopped. ‘‘They got out and took off over the paddocks,” Traffic Officer Robertson said later, ‘‘l went after them, getting extremely muddy. I jumped four fences, went through macrocarpa hedges, and finally caught them by thp scruff of their necks.”

Traffic Officer Robertson walked the boys back 200 yards to his car, and took them to the Otahuhu Police Station.

They were later taken to the Central Police Station, and will appear in the Children’s Court.