Neil Haywood
Is crime on the rise again in Canowindra?
According to Neil Haywood who runs the Canowindra caravan park, the crime rate, especially among youths, is “getting stupid and no-one seems to care.”
He cites an incident in which he was abused and threatened by “three guys” at the caravan park one night two weeks ago as a signal for new community vigilance.
“I rang the police as they started abusing me, and then, as they continued the confrontation, a siren sounded up in the town.
“It was a police car, but they were going somewhere else.
“But I told the three guys ‘That’s the police. They’re already here,’ and they quickly fled.” Neil says one of his guests, listening to the encounter from a caravan, heard one of the youths say he’d got a knife “and was going to stab me.
“We later found the knife where he’d thrown it away while escaping.”
But what really worries Neil is that they were obviously local youths, because they knew where he lives.
“The next morning I found all the tyres of my ute slashed outside my home.”
Neil Haywood wants a return to permanent policing in Canowindra instead of a patrol car from Cowra touring the town once or twice a week, as happens now, as a “visual warning” to would-be crims.
The Phoenix has been told the current crime rate doesn’t warrant it. What do you, the people of Canowindra, think?
By Derek Maitland