Linda O’Hare
February 18, 2019
The second of two vehicles stolen from the Graham House Community Transport Service depot in Murgon on February 10 was located in Kingaroy on Friday.
The Nissan X Trail was found at 8:30am in a paddock in the Kingaroy Industrial Estate, parked behind some storage containers.
Graham House manager Linda O’Hare said the vehicle had smashed windows and the engine, radiator and electrical components had been exposed to the weather.
The keys and a mobile phone that had been in the vehicle were missing.
Linda told southburnett.com.au she believed the thieves had hoped to return to the vehicle to use it again at some stage.
Officer-in-charge of Kingaroy Police, Senior Sergeant David Tierney, said police forensic officers had examined the vehicle.
The first of the two vehicles stolen, a Ford Mondeo stationwagon, was found on February 11 near Cherbourg.
“It didn’t have any panel damage but it did have three very flat tyres,” Linda said.
“We don’t know yet if it has any mechanical damage.”
Sadly, the Mondeo was one of the same vehicles which was stolen from Graham House and badly damaged in May last year.
It is part of the small fleet that Graham House volunteers use to transport people to medical appointments.
It was recovered on that occasion and repaired.
On the latest occasion, the thieves scaled a high wire fence – which has two strands of barbed wire across the top – and smashed louvres in Graham House’s Macalister Street building.
Once inside, they opened “every cupboard, every cabinet, every drawer” in the hunt for the car keys.
They found the keys to five vehicles which were parked at the depot.
Nothing else was stolen.
They then used bolt cutters to cut chains and open the gates to drive the two vehicles away.
“It’s pretty devastating. I don’t know what more we can do,” Linda said. “We’re only keeping honest people out.”
Linda said she believed the same thieves returned on Monday to remove the other three vehicles, but Graham House had taken precautions and had moved them.
“They targeted the supermarket next door, instead,” she said. “They left their bolt cutters behind.”
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