REBECCA STEVENSON
A weekend graveyard-smashing spree has left the caretakers of Napier Cemetery angry and with the painstaking job of reassembling more than 40 historical headstones.
"They are like pieces of a puzzle," Friends of Napier Cemeteries spokesperson Terry Pellet said as he looked over another marble stone left in five fragments on top of a grave.
Among those attacked was a memorial to a young family - William O'Brien, two, his brother John Joseph O'Brien, 12, buried with their parents, John and Bridget.
The cemetery in the Botanical Gardens had been targeted before, said fellow cemeteries friend John Harlow, but never like that.
Some headstones, wrecked and repaired before, now had fractures and splits running from side to side, with chunks gone for good.
The lead letters spelling out who was buried below had been picked off and even the sturdier stones, secured with a slab base, had been pushed over, their crosses crumbling as they hit the dirt.
"It took a lot of work to get those off," Mr Pellet said. Two days a week the friends visit the cemetery to take care of the headstones. Now the next month will be spent trying to re-erect the shattered memorials.
The friends have strong feelings about whoever caused the damage.
"Shooting is too good for them," Mr Harlow said. Mr Pellet had a punishment in mind.
"We should anchor them to a tree with a leg iron and make them spend the night up here."
About four or five months ago the cemetery had been attacked, Mr Harlow said, but this latest vandalism was the worst. "The little brutes have come around and broken them again," he said.
A team of three was at the cemetery yesterday mixing up epoxy and slowly assembling the bits.
They can be fixed, but the dignity of the old graves is diminished by the lines of resin snaking through them. Police received a call just before 6pm on Sunday from a person who said three youths were kicking over headstones at the cemetery.
"It is completely mindless ... it is hard to fathom why people would want to do that," Senior Sergeant Tony Dewhirst said.
A witness described the youths as white, aged 17 or 18. Two wore black jeans and T-shirts while the third had a black T-shirt and blue jeans.
Police want to hear from anyone who may have seen youths answering that description in the area of the gardens and Napier Terrace at that time.
Teens smash more than 40 headstones
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