{"id":711623,"date":"2026-06-03T02:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T02:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711623\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T02:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T02:17:10","slug":"police-remove-car-after-it-crashes-into-hyde-parks-archibald-fountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711623\/","title":{"rendered":"Police remove car after it crashes into Hyde Park’s Archibald Fountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

NSW Police says a French national was “eating Macca’s” inside a hire car that crashed into Hyde Park’s Archibald Fountain early this morning.<\/p>\n

About 4am, officers responded to reports a car had driven into a fountain in Sydney’s CBD.<\/p>\n

Police said the man had reversed the car into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old man has been charged with negligent driving, not reversing a vehicle safely and unlicensed driving.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Half of it was sticking inside, and half it was sticking out, with the driver still inside,” NSW Police Inspector Anderson Lessing told 702 ABC Sydney.<\/p>\n

“Strangely, he was still eating Macca’s there.<\/p>\n

“Allegedly, he says he was following his Navman to his destination, and that’s where it sent him.”\"a<\/p>\n

Police say the fountain was not significantly damaged. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old, who police say was an Uber driver, was uninjured and was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital for mandatory testing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NSW Police said they have been told the damage to the fountain caused an estimated $15,000 and $20,000 in damage.<\/p>\n

Inspector Lessing told 702 ABC Sydney the fountain sustained minimal damage.<\/p>\n

“There’s scratching and things like that, but no great structural damage to the fountain,” Inspector Lessing said.<\/p>\n

\"Male<\/p>\n

NSW Police Inspector Anderson Lessing said only minor damage was caused to the fountain. (ABC News: Greg Bigelow)<\/p>\n

The Archibald Fountain was completed in the 1920s by French artist Francois-Leon Sicard before being brought to Sydney and unveiled in 1932.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is named after Australian publisher J.F. Archibald, who bequeathed funds to have it built.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW Police says a French national was “eating Macca’s” inside a hire car that crashed into Hyde Park’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[345950,345951,64,63,345948,345949,345952,44],"class_list":["post-711623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-archibald-fountain-crash","tag-archibald-fountain-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-car-crash-hyde-park","tag-hyde-park-fountain","tag-hyde-park-fountain-car-crash","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}