Police have flagged a crackdown on illegal motorcycles and unsafe electric bicycle use and vandalism, as new reports emerged of large groups of youths riding on the vehicles through soccer matches, terrorising players and parents.
It comes as multiple public sports grounds were destroyed by brazen acts of vandalism over the past week at Hawker Playing Fields, with cars also ruining pitches at Wanniassa.
A concerned parent of a junior soccer player took photographs of further incidents on the weekend at Bonython, with matches needing to be stopped as a group of about 20 youths rode a mixture of electric and petrol-fuelled bikes through fields mid-game.
The group took corner flags being used in the matches and were accused of verbally abusing stunned onlookers.
The same witness also provided video footage from a few weeks ago at the other end of Canberra in Giralang, when more soccer matches were interrupted by a similarly large group of youths on motorised bikes.
"Last weekend [at Bonython] I'd say there was about 20 kids on bikes," the witness who wished to remain anonymous told The Canberra Times.
"They just screamed across the field and they did it a couple of times, so the game stopped. The officials had already dealt with them earlier in the game, so they stopped playing until they took off.
"They gave it to me while I was taking photos, too. When I popped up they were in a close huddle, and they scattered straight away. That's how weak as piss they are.
"This is happening every week. They just love destroying soccer grounds or golf courses."
The parent said the way the groups rode around the soccer fields was "intimidating", even though they were visibly quite young.
"They're so bold in a pack but when you go up to them they disperse like school kids. There's no adults there definitely. They're all kids being a nuisance," the witness said.
"Kids get up to stupid stuff, but this is more intimidating. They're filming themselves and it's all going up on social media I presume.
"People just want to get on with their weekend."
Deputy Commissioner and Chief Police Officer for the ACT, Scott Lee, said the recent damage to sporting fields was "disgraceful behaviour" and he issued a warning that a crackdown was imminent.
"It's absolutely disgraceful in both the impact on the community and also just the dangerous behaviour where they were riding through crowds," he told The Canberra Times in a statement.
The police chief also clarified that electric bicycles were legal, while electric motorcycles were not.
"We're in the planning stages to undertake some targeted weeks of action against the unlawful use of e-motorcycles," Lee said.
"But we've also got e-bikes and e-scooters [so we're] ensuring that they are also being lawfully used and people are using those devices safely.
"We will connect that to some media campaigns here so we ensure that we've got the right behaviour in the ACT."
Police provided an update to the Wanniassa and Hawker incidents from last week, and urged anyone with information to provide it to authorities.
"With one of those incidents the reporting is that was undertaken using motor vehicles, and that matter has been reported to us and we're investigating," Lee said in relation to the Wanniassa vandalism.
"On both incidents, anyone that's got information, what I would ask you to do is please come forward and report any information that you hold to police, so that we can take appropriate action."
