A man has been arrested after allegedly breaking into a Hobart coffee shop on Macquarie Street in the early hours of this morning.
The owner of Boutique Espresso, Anthony Cousins, was woken by a call from police alerting him that his shop had been broken into.
Police were called by a cleaner working at a neighbouring business who witnessed the break-in between 4am and 5am today.
According to Cousins, the intruder had armed himself with knives from the kitchen and was caught in the midst of stealing stock.
“He’d helped himself to the knives out the back. He opened the ice cream fridge, took all the ice creams out, all the drinks, chips, loaded the bags up, took some of the laptop things,” Cousins told Pulse.
When police arrived, the burglar allegedly claimed to be a good samaritan helping with clean-up efforts and provided a false name.
Police quickly saw through the man’s claims and took him into custody.
“A timely call from a member of the public allowed police to arrest the alleged offender whilst still inside the premises,” Inspector Danny Jackson said.
The break-in forced Boutique Espresso to close for the day while Cousins and his staff cleaned up the mess.
“The front door is now being fixed,” Cousins said.
‘I’ve had a lot of support today of everyone saying that they’re ready to come and see me tomorrow.”
He believes brazen crime is on the rise, saying the government needs to do more to prevent people from turning to offending.
‘I think we’re living in a world of fear … you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
‘I think our system’s just pretty much stuffed at the moment.”
“We need to throw a lot more money at being able to try and pull these people in and see if we can help them and sort them out.”
