Two young men have been arrested in Katherine after a resident found them raiding her kitchen early on Monday morning.
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The youth allegedly forced entry to the premises and stole alcohol and food.
A 22-year-old male was arrested later that morning and bailed. And a 13-year-old male was arrested around 8:40am the following day. He was also released and has been denied youth diversion.
The young men were charged with unlawful entry to a premises, stealing and being armed with an offensive weapon at night.
Katherine has been plagued with break-ins over the past couple of months.
Both residential and business premises have been targeted.
Popular Katherine cafe, The Finch, has seen its fair share of grief this week with five successful break-ins on top of three attempts in just under two weeks.
At the Katherine Town Council meeting this week – which was the last of the year – a resident called on council members to increase security at the Woolworths Complex following a six day stint of selling raffle tickets for church.
“I was there for six days from seven o’clock in the morning to 5 o’clock in the evening and some of the things I saw were horrendous,” the resident said.
“On some days there were 90 to 100 people fighting, yelling, screaming, riding bikes up and down inside the shopping centre and kids hauling clothes off the racks.
“I saw a couple of late tourists there absolutely gobsmacked.
“How are we ever going to rejuvenate Katherine when that is the situation we are dealing with?” she said.
Despite having no jurisdiction over the Woolworths Complex, Katherine Town Council Mayor, Fay Miller said, attempts would be made to fix the issue.
“It is unfortunate but this is nothing new. We can approach the owners of the complex to make sure they can address that and increase their security,” Mayor Miller said.
“We are not happy about it, it is not a good impression… but it has been going on for a very long time, and there are times when it is much worse than others,” she said.
Katherine Town Council CEO Rob Jennings said the NT Government and Katherine Police are taking the situation seriously.
“The new police Commander in town, Michael Hebb, is moving as fast as he can, but he is doing that in a sensible way by speaking to everyone to see what will work and making sure there are things happening on ground,” Mr Jennings said.
“It is a big issue… it is something we have been dealing with for a number of years, and a difference has been made. Four or three years ago a difference was made.
“It is possible to make an impact, and this is what the Commander will do. From what we can see, he is looking at the lessons learnt and what worked well before, because we have to do what we did before to get us back to there.
“Two years ago we had some good stuff going on and we can get back there,” he said.
According to an NT Police Spokeswoman other offenders have been identified in regards to the Monday break-in and investigations are continuing.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 131444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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