The owner of a large meat business says he’s disheartened after his laden delivery truck was allegedly stolen and taken on a wild ride that included damaging multiple vehicles and a house.
A 31-year-old Tara man was charged with one count each of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle whilst adversely affected by an intoxicating substance, robbery with violence, two counts of unlawful use of a motor vehicle and three counts each of stealing and possession of dangerous drugs.
He was due to appear before the Cleveland Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Police have released startling vision of the truck being driven along major roads and residential streets on Monday.
Fresh Meats owner Martin, who preferred not to use his surname, was still taking stock of the situation on Tuesday.
“It’s just really disheartening that a member of the community has (allegedly) elected to steal a meat delivery truck, while we were going about delivering,” he said.
Police will allege the truck was stolen from Mooloolaba about 8.20am on Monday. About 4.45pm they received multiple calls about the driving manner of the truck on the Bruce Highway at Caboolture.
The truck was tracked, by police helicopter and police vehicles, as it headed south, damaging multiple vehicles in Brisbane, before crashing into the deck of a home.
Martin said the truck was still running when it was taken, while the delivery driver was handing over goods.
“Because we need to maintain the temperature of the meat at three degrees, it’s not possible to turn off the truck whilst making a delivery,” he said.
“Although today we’ll make a second set of keys so that we’ll lock the truck while we’re making the deliveries.
“We’ve been going for seven years and never had an issue previously.”
Amid the day-long drama, Martin said he and his colleagues were intent on completing the deliveries.
“We were thinking ‘How do we cut another 600 kilos of meat and deliver it to the customers before midday?’, because Fresh Meats deliveries come, hell or high water,” he said.
“We just had to double down.
“We had to re-enter the orders into the system, start cutting, bagging and labelling, and then use one of our smaller trucks to deliver it to customers.
“The same driver who had his truck and wallet (allegedly) stolen was back on the road within 60 minutes.”
He said the truck was probably a write-off.
“We have recovered some of the meat, but we haven’t done a final stocktake yet,” he said.
Fresh Meats, which employs about 120 full-time staff at Maroochydore, was in full swing again on Tuesday.
“Today’s another day,” Martin said.
“We’ll get on with business, we’re in the market for a new truck and we encourage the community to come down and support a local business.”
Many people supported Fresh Meats on Monday, with some of them providing updates on the truck’s location.
The business issued a plea to “help us find our truck” on Facebook in the morning.
“We (then) had very good feedback from local businesses and the community on the whereabouts (of the truck),” Martin said.
Police urged anyone who witnessed the incident or sustained damage to their vehicle to contact Policelink.
Investigations were ongoing.
Help us deliver more news by registering for our FREE daily news feed. All it requires is your name and email at the bottom of this article.
