Corowa Police have identified several young people from Albury Wodonga area who were known to police and also recovered the bakery’s stolen till on the Riverina Highway.
Sgt Steve Marshall said through the till and CCTV footage of a white SUV vehicle, police were able to link the offenders with another break and enter in Jindera on the same night.
Howlong baker, Steve Ffyfe said he was in the bakehouse out the back just before 11.30pm last Wednesday night when he peered through the glass doors and realised someone was inside.
Stever said he burst through the doors, clean jumped the counter and took them on.
“I’ve still got it,” he said.
“When I caught them, the look on their face was ‘(expletive), someone’s here’.
“I served them a couple of knuckle sandwiches and then the boys outside came to their aid… they were throwing rocks at me.
“It could have been a lot worse; there were five of them.”
Steve says he could probably identify two of the offenders who he said would have been under 18 and “tall, but very weak”.
Steve shared images from CCTV on Facebook on Thursday morning.
“If you see these two about, offer them a change of pants; particularly the one who was crying and saying sorry,” he posted.
“Not so tough when you get caught midway through a break and enter.”
The intruders wore surgical masks and despite doing an estimated $25,000 damage to the bakery, they stole nothing.
“They destroyed the tills and kicked the doors in but took nothing, zero,” Steve said.
“I called the police, but there were none for 100kms.”
At the Post Office and Mail n Mart next door, Malcolm Whittle says he was lucky.
His front window was smashed but there was no damage to the inside of his business, and nothing was stolen.
Malcolm’s alarm went off at 11.38pm and his wife, thinking it was tripped by a moth, was there within three minutes.
“He was still in building when she walked in the back door,” Malcolm said.
“He went out the front door.
“We didn’t get a good look, but they are on CCTV footage from the bakery.
“The baker took them on, to his credit; they made a run for it, but they did quite a lot of damage.”
Sgt Marshall said he understands that people’s concern that there is no permanent police presence in Howlong.
“There are always police available, but on that night a risk assessment was conducted and a decision was made not to call police out,” Sgt Marshall said.
“Although it is frustrating to the community, thanks to the cooperation of the bakery owner, we lost not one piece of evidence.
“The integrity of the crime scene was not compromised, thanks to Steve and the steps he put in place.
“I understand the frustration of the community, but this is a frustration that’s being felt nationwide, that’s why there is a massive recruitment across Australia to get more police.
“Particularly rural towns are starved of police, but we are always around, at beck and call.
“Sometimes if we aren’t on duty it’s risk assessed first, and on that night the decision was made not to call police; they had already left the scene.”
Until a permanent officer is recruited for Howlong, police from Corowa will be rotated to work from the town.
Sgt Marshall has appealed to the community to be mindful of their police.
“We are members of the community and we take our job seriously, we want to be there,” he said.
“We want to help, so when people make snide comments on social media we feel the frustration.”
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