Knife-point ordeal begins near home

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 1

Knife-point ordeal begins near home

By

GLEN PERKINSON

Dennis Coppen’s; , two-hour knife-point ordeal began metres from his doorstep.

The quietly spoken Dutch-born driver, aged 35, thought he was going to have a quiet morning yesterday. But the scheduled journey of Christchurch Transport Board bus 507 from Parklands to Hornby turned into a tense 100-kilometre hijacking. Metres from Mr Coppen’s home, in Queenspark Drive, a youth brandishing a short-bladed knife ordered, “Drive — anywhere!”

Mr Coppen’s first concern was for the schoolgirl and middleaged woman who were aboard the bus when the incident began at 8.25 a.m.

“I heaved a sigh of relief when the hijacker let them go about 100 metres down the road,” he said. During the hijacking the armed youth was in contact with a police inspector on the bus radio-telephone. Mr Coppen said he thought the youth asked what penalty he would receive if he let the driver go. Mr Coppen cannot remember what the police told the youth, but soon after the conversation he was released.

Between Oxford and Darfield the youth asked Mr Coppen if he needed to stretch his legs.■ The; two left the bus for a short time., “He was next to 'me all along outside so I could not run away. He asked me if I wanted a cigarette. We got back on. I could not get away," Mr Coppen said. Mr Coppen did not think he could escape. “You are stuck behind the steering wheel and it's very difficult, you see. Although I couldn’t see him all the time I knew he had that knife out.” Mr Coppen said he glanced back every now and then to see what the youth was doing. The hijacker sometimes stood beside him. “He was quite calm until he saw the police cars following and the policeman on the RT said there was a helicopter in the air. At that moment he was a bit scared. But he didn’t become violent — he let me go shortly (afterwards).” The youth said very little to Mr Coppen but held the knife near him during the journey. “He got on the bus and said he wanted to go to Rangiora. He fished around in his pockets for money and then dragged out the knife. I didn’t think much at all

— I just drove as he asked me to. ‘Anywhere,’ he said — so I went where the road took me.” The ordeal. came to an end about 1&.30< a.m. when the bus ran low on diesel and Mr Coppen pulled off the road on to the grass verge. By then the police had closed in on the hijacked vehicle. The youth said to Mr Coppen, “You can go now.” Soon after, the youth was dragged from the bus by armed offenders squad members and detectives and was arrested.

The hijacker gave Mr Coppen no indication why he forced the bus from its normal route, although Mr Coppen assumed he “had a problem with his girlfriend or something. He was never violent, so I just kept driving.”

Mr Coppen said there was little conversation during the two-hour incident.

“He can give me a sight-seeing tour any other time, but just not when I’m on duty,” he joked. “New Zealand is a beautiful country but there are much better ways to see it than this.” Mr Coppen was described by his senior inspector, Mr Tony Davis, as one of the most levelheaded drivers the board had. Mrs Coppen was pleased to see her husband back.