Police praise revellers’ general good behaviour

The past few weeks have been relatively quiet according to police across the region, with the majority of people on their best behaviour over the Christmas and New Year period.

Manjimup Acting officer-in-charge Nick Howe said he had patrolled Pemberton, Manjimup and Bridgetown on both Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the busiest times for the area, with little to report.

“There was lots of people out and celebrating, particularly on New Year’s Eve, but everyone was in really good spirits and no one caused us any problems,” he said.

“In terms of traffic and people driving, that has also been really good, we have set up a lot of random breath tests and we did not really have any hits.”

Const. Howe said the one area which had caused the biggest problem was speeding, with many people caught driving between 9km and 20km over the speed limit.

“We had quite a few people speeding and it does not seem to be the locals, it is always the people who are down here on holiday,” he said.

“This is a pretty normal trend though and it seems to happen every year around this time because of the influx of people coming from everywhere and travelling around the region.”

Const. Howe said the speeding had not caused any accidents during Christmas and New Year and all up there had only been a few minor crashes just before Christmas.

He also said there had been a small amount of theft from vehicles across the region, but all of them had been from unlocked cars.

“We had about three or four reports but no car was damaged in the process and we think it might be some kids doing it,” he said.

“Unfortunately, with these kinds of thefts it is hard to catch the person responsible unless anyone sees the incident happen, so I want to advise people to make sure their car is locked at all times.”