UPDATE:
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POLICE have identified the man allegedly responsible for damaging the Gipps Street field by performing doughnuts on Wednesday night.
Following investigations, local highway patrol officers questioned a 26-year-old man on Thursday morning.
Oxley Sergeant Michael Buko said the man will appear in Tamworth Local Court in August.
“He will be issued a future court attendance notice for malicious damage,” he told The Leader.
It’s not the first time CCTV has been used to identify hoodlums, Sergeant Buko said.
“This city has extensive CCTV and we will use that to catch those people doing the wrong thing,” he said.
“This sort of crime impacts on the community and ratepayers, who are left to foot the bill.”
The alleged offender caused surface damage to the grass with a vehicle.
EARLIER:
VANDALS have been caught on CCTV ripping up Tamworth sporting fields overnight.
The unidentified criminals performed doughnuts on one of the Gipps Street fields, causing surface damage to the grass.
Tamworth Regional Council acting sports and recreation manager Sam Eriksson said the footage is in very close proximity to the fields.
“So we are confident we have caught the culprits red-handed,” he said.
“Everyone's really looking out for the rain and welcoming rain, and to have to have this senseless act is very frustrating.”
Luckily, the offenders caused no major indentations to the field and council believe it will be easy to repair.
"We forecast that training will be able to go ahead, and it will be up to Northern Inland Football if they would like to go to an alternate venue for the short term,” Mr Eriksson said
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Northern Inland Football general manager Julia Farina said she is extremely disappointed by the damage.
“It's terrible. What can you say? Why people do this is just beyond me. It's just really disappointing,” she said.
“I'm confident that council will get these looking back up to standard very soon, so let's hope that this Saturday we can have no impact on our games.”
The people that will mainly be affected by the damage are the under six and under seven all girls competition, that play on this particular field every Saturday morning.
Council claim there will be no remediated costs associated with repairing the damage to the field, but warns any criminal activity will be captured and actions taken.
