Editorial: Common sense is required now

OPINION: The picture on today's front page of hundreds of people enjoying the welcoming party for 2010 at Caroline Bay, and the fact that New Year's Eve celebrations around South Canterbury were relatively trouble-free, both point to the fact that we live in a great place.

We are blessed with a low level of violent crime in this region and able to enjoy ourselves, for the most part, without fear of putting our health and wellbeing in jeopardy by doing so.

But while violent incidents are rare, they also stand out. The robbery at the Centennial Park Store in September was one such rare incident last year, as was the senseless slaughter of more than 30 birds in the Temuka Domain aviary, and unfortunately we went into 2010 on the back of another one, an assault which police said had "sexual elements" on a 15-year-old girl late on Tuesday night.

As a community we should be grateful the teenager wasn't injured inn the attack on the corner of Grassmere and Selwyn Streets, but we should also be appalled that the attack happened at all and give police any assistance we can, individually or collectively, in their hunt for the suspects.

Though this community is a largely peaceful one, and people can, for the most part, move around freely without fear of harm, the message from CIB Detective Sergeant Dylan Murray in yesterday's Herald nevertheless makes sense. People, especially young people, should not be walking around alone late at night; it is simply common sense, as Mr Murray said, adding "you can't take anything for granted any more".

We have to accept, as hard as it is to do so, that it is simply no longer safe to walk the streets alone at night, even in Timaru, or the outlying communities in South Canterbury.

Hopefully, the young girl who was the victim of this attack will quickly get over the trauma and be able to give police real help as they seek the culprits. Hopefully the police's efforts will also meet with success quickly, as they try to piece together exactly what happened.

Timaru remains a safe community where such events are mercifully rare and we should not get things out of perspective as the result of a single nasty incident. Most New Zealand communities would look at our violent crime statistics with envy.

However, we should also each ensure that we take sensible measures to avoid being put in difficult situations ourselves. That way our record on violent crime will remain an enviable one.

- © Fairfax NZ News