‘Distraught and angry’ witness describes terrifying scenes after South Morang robbery

A terrified witness who contacted Neil Mitchell yesterday following a brazen daylight smash and grab at a shopping centre in South Morang says she is distraught and angry. 

Vicki called the program yesterday minutes after four men stormed a jewellery store at the Plenty Valley Westfield centre.

She spoke to Neil Mitchell and said she still couldn’t believe it had happened.

‘I’m OK but I’m still relatively distraught this could happen in my shopping centre,’ she told Neil Mitchell.

‘Initially when I heard the noise I thought the roof was coming in, it was like a movie set.’

She described scenes of women screaming, and loud bangs during the brazen robbery. 

‘I’m angry people have the audacity to think they can come in and do something like that,’ she said.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Eastern Region Clive Rust said they were working with the industry to investigate new security measures. 

He said the majority of jewellery store robberies to date had occurred in shopping strips. 

‘Obviously within a shopping centre we have much greater number of people and innocent victims and the opportunity of the offenders to commit the crimes within the centre is greater because of the number of shops,’ he said.

‘We have to highlight the fact we need to increase our security measures and we need to work on the value of high quality CCTV.’

Click PLAY to hear both interviews: