A woman has been charged after she allegedly stole a courier van and crashed into a police vehicle and an airport security fence at Broken Hill earlier today.
A 47-year-old man has told police he’d parked his van on Galena Street and was making a delivery at a shopping centre about 9:15am (Saturday 21 September 2019), when he came back and found a woman in the back of the vehicle.
When he yelled out, police will allege the woman jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away.
Police were alerted found the van being driven towards Broken Hill Regional Airport.
The driver stopped the van inside the airport precinct where it was blocked by police; however, she has allegedly accelerated and hit the police caged truck, before driving into the steel-mesh airport perimeter fence.
This caused part of the fence to collapse trapping the van.
A 35-year-old woman was arrested and taken to Broken Hill Police Station where she was charged with:
• Take and drive conveyance without consent of owner
• Negligent driving
• Destroy or damage property (two counts)
• Police pursuit – not stop – drive recklessly
• Drive under the influence of alcohol, and
• Never licensed person drive vehicle on road.
The woman has been refused bail and will appear before Broken Hill Local Court tomorrow (Sunday 22 September 2019).
There was no impact or interruption to the operation of the airport, and no police were injured.
