Christchurch pounamu headstone theft: Family plead for taonga to be returned

Peter Wakefield's headstone was stolen from Christchurch's Ruru Lawn Cemetery. Photo / Supplied

A Christchurch woman is “saddened to no end” after discovering her father’s treasured gold-embossed pounamu headstone has been stolen from a graveyard.

Emily Lai-Kong has described feeling shocked at the discovery yesterday at Ruru Lawn Cemetery in Bromley.

Lai-Kong had just left Sunday church services when she decided to visit her late dad Peter Wakefield, who died in 2022.

“It comes up to the busy time of Christmas and you start to think about your loved ones.

“Then it was just complete shock, disbelief to find it not there.”

The circular, solid greenstone monument with its gold-lettered epitaph was mounted on a red plinth, which was also removed by thieves.

“Tools would have been used,” Lai-Kong said.

“They would have had to go to quite a lot of trouble.

“I just thought, ‘Why? Why would it be taken?’

“It’s varnished so they’d have to do a lot of work to get it to a piece that they could make jewellery out of.”

Emily Lai Kong believes thieves would have used tools to remove the greenstone headstone. Photo / Supplied

Lai-Kong estimated the theft occurred in the last two or three weeks.

She said there was no damage to any of the surrounding headstones.

The pounamu was a treasured piece that had been in the family for many years.

“It was actually from Dad’s house,” Lai-Kong said adding that he had used the stone as a doorstop.

“When we cleaned his house when he passed, we wanted to do something with it for him.”

Peter Wakefield's family estimate his pounamu headstone was stolen in the last two to three weeks. Photo / Supplied

The family are pleading for the thieves to return the family taonga so that their dad can “be at rest fully”.

“Please put it back where it was, we will restore it if it’s been damaged in any way.

“This is a horrible crime that has happened, and something nobody should have to deal with,” said Senior Sergeant Roy Appley.

“The value of a headstone or plaque is far more than the monetary worth, which makes this crime even more appalling.

“Unfortunately, due to the limited information we have, we don’t have active avenues of inquiry.”

Police said the file was closed until any new information came to light.

Police have asked anyone who may have witnessed the theft, or had information that might help an investigation, to contact them online or by calling 105 and quoting file number 251214/9132.

Peter Michael John Wakefield died in 2022 at 70 years old. Photo / Supplied

It’s not the first time this year gravestones have been targeted by thieves at the Christchurch cemetery.

Twenty-three bronze plaques memorialising victims of the 1947 Ballantynes fire were stolen from Ruru Lawn in January.

Vandals stripped an entire row of the memorial and stole plaques from wooden benches throughout the cemetery.