Pinnacle Stone owner grateful for recovery of stolen slabs

A Pinnacle Stone employee with one of the granite slabs stolen from the family business on Hyderabad Rd last month. Photo / Duncan Brown

A family business owner is delighted to have recovered several irreplaceable granite slabs stolen from his workshop last month.

Last week Pinnacle Stone owner John Bennett spoke out about his business being left out of pocket after granite and marble slabs were stolen from his worksite on Hyderabad Rd, Napier, on April 24.

Bennett noticed the slabs, estimated to be worth around $10,000, were missing several days later and went through his CCTV footage to find several males and a car had been captured in images.

Police appealed to the public for information, stating they wanted to speak to the people pictured in the CCTV footage, and contacted Bennett shortly after a story was published by Hawke's Bay Today to inform him they had recovered three granite slabs.

Bennett said the recovery was "fantastic news".

"We're really appreciative of the support online and how everybody jumped in and tried to assist as much as possible.

"I certainly got phone calls all day and my competition even phoned up and see if he could help me in anyway which is good."

Bennett's employees first noticed the slabs were missing after returning from a job on April 26.

"When we got back from the job site we saw a whole lot of stuff had been moved around. That's when we realised stuff had been stolen.

"Then we went back through our [CCTV] footage and discovered that actually a lot of it had been stolen the night before over Anzac Day."

It was just last week that Bennett said he thought his business would be "hard pressed" to get the products back but the recovery has restored his confidence.

"It's a hard call because I knew we had great footage and they eventually have to be caught because of the cameras. I'm definitely grateful that it's back."

One of the slabs was unique piece that had already been claimed by a client when it was stolen.

Bennett said the irreplaceable piece was "priceless" as the mine that excavated the granite had shut down years ago.

"It's that one piece that the lady really wanted that we couldn't replace that's been returned so that's fantastic.

"There's quite a bit to locate [but] that one piece is the one that was heartbreaking to lose."

He said he hoped the fact that the granite slabs had been returned would act as a deterrence to others.

"On my wife's initial [Facebook] post we were hoping people would just bring it straight back and then we wouldn't have had to go that far but because they kept coming we had to involve the police."

Bennett was grateful for the support his family had received after his wife posted about the burglary.

"That's the true beauty of it for me is that people out there are willing to support and help. As a community we don't support or tolerate this sort of stuff."