The Owners Perspective
Rampage puts tank's owner right off track
Jordan Baker Chief Police Reporter
July 17, 2007
IT WAS a rough night for Greg Morris. In the space of a few hours, the two former British army vehicles he spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring were consigned to the maintenance shed - and one will be there for a very long time.
When Mr Morris's black 1967 armoured personnel carrier was stolen and used in a rampage across western Sydney on Saturday, its 1963 companion - painted a festive orange - was damaged as well.
Mr Morris estimated it would cost up to $60,000 to fix both vehicles, especially as they were fitted with leather seats, mini-bars and plasma televisions so they could be hired out for weddings, formals and truck shows.
Neither was insured. "I didn't think anyone would steal them," he told the Herald.
Mr Morris's former employee, John Robert Patterson, 35, of Dharruk, is accused of taking the personnel carrier and using it to ram fences and seven mobile phone towers during a wild police chase through western Sydney. Patterson did not apply for bail in Penrith Court yesterday. He faces 15 charges, including one of "predatory driving", several of causing malicious damage and one of driving a vehicle with intent to cause actual bodily harm. Court documents allege that he damaged the orange tank while he was taking the personnel carrier, but did not explain how.
Mr Morris said Patterson used to work for Telstra and held a grudge against the company.
Telstra property, a Hutchinson Communications shed and an Optus mobile phone antenna, were damaged in the rampage.
The shell of the 44-year-old orange tank cost $5000, but hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent restoring it. The personnel carrier is thought to have been used by the British in the 1991 Gulf War.
Patterson helped with the personnel carrier's refurbishment, and was one of only three people who knew the sequence required to start it, Mr Morris said.
The vehicles were now worth about $1 million each, he said. Damage to the phone towers was estimated in the millions.
Repairs to the orange tank would hopefully be finished in time for an appearance on The Footy Show this week, Mr Morris said. Damage to the armoured personnel carrier is far more severe, and it may not see a bridal party for more than a year.
"Things are upside down inside it," he said. "It's all falling out because it climbed up poles and everything."
The vehicles have huge sentimental significance to Mr Morris, not least because the orange tank last year jumped six cars at the Fairfield Showground and crushed several more at a show in Gosford. They are also used for children's entertainment.
Patterson is due to reappear in court on September 28.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rampage-puts-tanks-owner-right-off-track/2007/07/16/1184559705319.html
