Resident still fighting to get his stolen goods back

A Hawke's Bay resident is feeling frustrated and is still hoping to recover his goods after his Onekawa home was ransacked in January.

Simon Bell and his partner Amanda Dawson have since brought a 2-year-old German shepherd, Sam, to deter potential thieves.

When the couple left for a weekend lunch on January 5 it gave the thief an hour and a half slot to shimmy through a window and into their private residence.

When the couple arrived home the gate was open and they discovered guitars, amplifiers and a PlayStation 4 were missing.

"Somebody had climbed in a small window, they had used gloves because police couldn't find any finger prints," Mr Bell said.

He said the window was only small and quite high, "it would have taken two people, the one that got in would've had to have been small and been lifted up".

The couple did what most people would and claimed insurance, "then obviously got a dog to deter people from doing it again", Mr Bell said.

"For me it's my anger about invading private space."

But for his partner, getting the dog was more of an emotional move, so she felt safer in the house.

Mr Bell said he had dealt with the burglary by "swinging into action" and trying to help police.

He trawled through Facebook sites where people often sold off items and spoke to local music store, Rock Shop, in case any guitars had been brought in.

Mr Bell then discovered one of his guitars at a local pawn shop, the person who was trying to sell it still there with police after staff realised the guitar was stolen.

Staff at Superloans Napier had called the police and the person trying to pawn the guitar was there when Mr Bell arrived to reclaim his guitar.

Mr Bell turned to music as an "escape".

"It helps me wind down after a long week of work," so having them taken was a huge blow to Mr Bell.

A Superloans staff member said people often brought serial numbers in to be checked against items to see if they were stolen.

Following the thefts Mr Bell said he was not satisfied with the process around finding who was responsible for the burglary.

A Hawke's Bay police spokeswoman said those responsible had not been found yet.

She said it was still under investigation.

He had taken the matter to Labour's Member of Parliament for Napier, Stuart Nash, to explore where to next.

Mr Bell said through an app on his phone he had watched the new owner of his PlayStation 4 using his account to purchase things, thankfully he had already cancelled his credit cards.

"With technology you can trace things like that these days, and you can track them."

He said Sony could hold the key to unlock the mystery of who had uplifted his possessions as they can access specific details about the account user.

Sony could not be reached for comment.