\u201cI decided it would be great to go around and see a friend, drop off some presents and say hello. My wife said to me, \u2018Are you sure we should be taking this car?\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be fine\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was only 20 minutes outside their house, a very quiet street. It was light [outside]. We came out and my wife pointed out that someone had smashed the rear window, reached in and grabbed the presents, and headed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a shock. It was a shock partly because of the Christmas presents and partly because my wife had been telling me, \u2018Don\u2019t do that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
AA Insurance head of motor claims Beau Paparoa said roadside staff were responding to smashed windows more often.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely see car break-ins starting to occur a lot more around this time of year. We\u2019re often hearing from customers and some of our roadside teams that there\u2019s definitely a bit more opportunistic theft happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting that down to it being a busy time of year. Everyone\u2019s out doing their Christmas shopping and there\u2019s much more presence of gifts and valuables being visible in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
He encouraged people to be careful and make sure valuables were hidden from view.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of any valuables, if you\u2019ve done some Christmas shopping, or if generally you\u2019ve got valuables in your car, try [to] keep them locked away or out of sight \u2013 in your boot if you can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere you\u2019re parking is possibly a good thing to think about. If you can afford to, don\u2019t park on the street, but if you have to park on-street, make sure you park in well-lit areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said it was not uncommon for Christmas presents to be stolen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key is to remove any opportunity. This includes taking valuables or documents out of vehicles wherever possible,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Rees said he wished he had followed that advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a bit stupid, to be absolutely honest. I read all of the things from police saying \u2018don\u2019t do this, don\u2019t pack your car, don\u2019t just leave it on the street\u2019, and I did exactly the opposite and I paid the price.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI decided it would be great to go around and see a friend, drop off some presents and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[42579,138,3944,18399,37774,71,78933,189,111,139,69,1523,26227,48047,4736,37775,1455],"class_list":{"0":"post-196097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-breakins","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-car","11":"tag-christmas","12":"tag-felix","13":"tag-from","14":"tag-gifts","15":"tag-holiday","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-over","20":"tag-parked","21":"tag-prompts","22":"tag-stolen","23":"tag-walton","24":"tag-warning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}