A man has been arrested over the theft of plaques from war veterans’ graves at an Invercargill cemetery – some of which have been “damaged beyond repair”.<\/p>\n
Invercargill police have charged the 44-year-old man with theft following the removal of veteran war plaques from St John Cemetery between October 28 and November 22.<\/p>\n
Nine plaques were taken, four from the graves of Returned Service personnel who served in the First and Second World Wars.<\/p>\n
Senior Constable Craig Colyer said all nine plaques had been recovered, but some were damaged beyond repair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are pleased the plaques have been located, it is disappointing that not all could be restored to their original condition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheft at any time is appalling, but targeting a cemetery is a particularly low act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope this arrest brings some comfort to the affected families, and we want to thank the public for their assistance with the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The accused would appear in the Invercargill District Court on January 13.<\/p>\n
Royal New Zealand Returned and Services\u2019 Association (RSA) Awarua president Ian Beker described the theft as\u00a0“the biggest disrespect”.<\/p>\n
The plaques signified people who had been prepared to give their all in service of their country, Mr Beker said, told the ODT in December.<\/p>\n
They could have descendants who were only now learning about their ancestors\u2019 service.<\/p>\n
RSA Otago Southland district president Lox Kellas said it was “mindless vandalism” and desecration.<\/p>\n
“I think those that are responsible need to take a good hard look at themselves.<\/p>\n
“It just shows a complete lack of respect, at the end of the day.”<\/p>\n
– Allied Media<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been arrested over the theft of plaques from war veterans’ graves at an Invercargill cemetery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-221841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}