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A Waikanae cafe owner today agreed she was so desperate to get her stolen $250,000 sculpture back that she paid $10,000 in cash for its return.
The 3m by 3m bronze sculpture, owned by Maggie Mouat and Gavin Bradley, was stolen from outside the cafe Swell at Waikanae Beach on the Kapiti Coast on October 6, 2005.
Brenden John Marshall, 39, and Benjamin Horace Way, 23, are on trial in the High Court in Wellington accused of receiving the sculpture.
Marshall also allegedly blackmailed the owners, threatening to cut up the valuable artwork and sell it to a scrap metal dealer.
Ms Mouat returned to the witness stand today and agreed she had been desperate to get the sculpture back, so had acceded to the demand to pay $10,000, rather than a $6000 reward offered, which was legal.
Posters had been put up offering a "substantial" but unspecified reward, which lawyer Paul Surridge, for Way and Marshall, today suggested meant the figure was open to negotiation.
But: "The words 'substantial reward' do not represent the opportunity for someone else to dictate how much money we might be willing to pay for our property," Ms Mouat said.
Mr Surridge also suggested Marshall had been acting only to facilitate the work's return.
Ms Mouat said he had never acted in her interests.
"Marshall for whatever reasons in his life was in a circle of people who had stolen the sculpture."
Her friend Christopher Cameron was one of the men who on her behalf took $10,000 in an envelope and gave it to Marshall in return for the sculpture at Waikanae Cemetery.
After that either Hay or Marshall had wiped down the one-tonne sculpture before leaving.
Lawyer Tim Blake suggested that was not to wipe away fingerprints, a suggestion dismissed by Mr Cameron.
"I can't explain to you that a wipe down was for any other reason than fingerprints."
The jury trial is expected to finish tomorrow.
- NZPA
