Pegasus Post: January 28, 2020
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PEGASUS POST Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
Tuesday <strong>January</strong> <strong>28</strong> <strong>2020</strong> 5<br />
News<br />
‘Heartbreak’ after items stolen from graves<br />
• By Sophie Cornish<br />
AN UPSET mother has resorted<br />
to permanently attaching<br />
treasures to her children’s graves<br />
after several items were stolen –<br />
including three sacred pounamu.<br />
Gwyneth Beard has lost two<br />
children, son Elwyn in 1991 and<br />
her daughter Talla Pakeha in<br />
2011.<br />
Elwyn was eight-months-old<br />
when he died of cot death and<br />
Talla was 25 when she died from<br />
a severe asthma attack.<br />
Both are buried at Ruru Lawn<br />
Cemetery in Bromley.<br />
Talla’s twin boys, Tane and<br />
Aka, were six-years-old and<br />
Ngatanahira, was four-years-old<br />
when she died.<br />
She was also seven months<br />
pregnant and the unborn baby<br />
did not survive.<br />
With Talla’s birthday approaching,<br />
Gwyneth, along with<br />
her grandsons, Tane and Aka,<br />
who are now 14, spent time tidying<br />
up her grave.<br />
Returning the next day,<br />
Gwyneth noticed a plaque, string<br />
of solar lights and pounamu<br />
necklace had been stolen.<br />
“We have cemented down<br />
most of the pounamu. The other<br />
one, we never got around to doing<br />
it,” she said.<br />
It’s not the first time she has<br />
felt “heartbroken” by thieves.<br />
About three years ago, two<br />
pounamu were stolen from<br />
Elwyn’s grave.<br />
One of the items was found for<br />
sale on Facebook, with the offender<br />
admitting to police it had<br />
been sold for $300.<br />
The other pounamu was never<br />
recovered and the offender was<br />
never charged, making Gwyneth<br />
reluctant to report the most<br />
recent thefts.<br />
“We were just given the stuff<br />
back and never heard anything<br />
more about it. I just didn’t want<br />
LOSS: Thieves have stolen items from two<br />
of Gwyneth Beard’s children’s graves. She<br />
wants security cameras in all city council-run<br />
cemeteries. PHOTOS: GEOFF SLOAN<br />
to deal with that again.<br />
Gwyneth’s aunt also had four<br />
steel roses valued at $10 each<br />
stolen soon after she placed them<br />
on her husband’s grave at the<br />
same cemetery.<br />
“That really broke my heart<br />
because she probably used her<br />
pension to get those,” she said.<br />
Talla and her sons were subjected<br />
to family violence when<br />
she was alive.<br />
Her sons have now become<br />
advocates against domestic<br />
violence, sharing their story<br />
through singing and speeches at<br />
community events and the Ministry<br />
of Justice summit last year.<br />
“It’s really heartbreaking, she<br />
has already been violated and now<br />
she should be resting in peace and<br />
then they come and do that and<br />
then that violates her too.<br />
“Being Maori I just don’t<br />
understand, it’s so wrong to take<br />
things from the cemetery, let<br />
alone pounamu,” Gwyneth said.<br />
She hopes the city council will<br />
consider installing security cameras<br />
in all parts of the cemetery.<br />
The city council acting unit<br />
manager for parks, Al Hardy,<br />
said family and friends are responsible<br />
for items on graves.<br />
“Council would ordinarily<br />
only remove broken or neglected<br />
items or materials that represented<br />
a health or safety issue.”<br />
Mr Hardy would encourage<br />
reporting the thefts to the city<br />
council’s contact centre and said<br />
over the past year, five have been<br />
reported.<br />
“There have been no steps<br />
taken for theft of items from<br />
grave sites. For added security<br />
following the March 15 tragedy,<br />
the Memorial Cemetery has<br />
camera surveillance.”<br />
Mr Hardy said extra security<br />
measures would be considered<br />
on a case-by-case basis.<br />
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