Praying for a pricked conscience

Someone in Hikurangi knows where Tyree's P3 is, and we are asking them to give it back. PHOTO JOHN STONE

Someone in Hikurangi knows who has six-year-old Tyree Walters' PlayStation and they should give it back.

It's a PS3, pinched when he was in hospital on Sunday getting 30 stitches after a nasty dog attack.

As a dad who has listened to many submissions as to why a gaming console needs upgrading, I can tell you that PS3s have been superseded by PS4s.

Which means PS3s don't have much monetary value.

But the PS3 belonged to Tyree's dad, who died three years ago, so it is important to Tyree. And there was music on the PS3's hard drive that connects Tyree with his dad.

This PS3 worth a few dollars on Trade Me is priceless to a wee Hikurangi kid forced to deal with the double blow this past week of a traumatic dog attack, and heartless thieves.

Yesterday, 200 flyers were dropped in Hikurangi asking people to let police know if they know where the PS3 is.

My gut feeling is that someone does know, and will get the message through social and mainstream media, police work, or the flyers, and do the right thing.

The flyers were created and distributed by Northern Advocate staff - it was a simple thing for us to do.

Not a single person said "no thanks" when we asked them to display the posters we offered them. And the reaction was universal - it was disgust.

We also received offers from readers to donate money yesterday, and from outside of Northland as well.

There is an account number that people can donate to - 06-0287-0590510-12.
We will pass any donations on to Tyree's mum.

And hopefully tomorrow we have some good news to report, around replacing the PlayStation 4 that Tyree also had stolen.

But it is the PS3 that we really need to find, and hopefully ongoing publicity flushes out the stolen property or pricks someone's conscience.