Māori graves damaged by vandals at Waikumete Cemetery in West Auckland

The late Cameron Duncan's family was among a number of whānau "extremely distressed" by vandalism to Māori graves at Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland.

Originally published by Māori Television

Sharon Murphy (Ngāpuhi, Te Honihoni, Ngāi Tūteauru) says she is “disgusted” by the awful damage done by “callous, rotten” vandals to graves in the Māori section of Waikumete Cemetery in West Auckland, particularly to the shared grave of her son Cameron Duncan and mother Ani Murphy.

“I was really disgusted, I’d have to say. I can’t think of another word – disgusted in what someone has done.”

Cameron was only 17 years old when he died of osteosarcoma cancer, 20 years ago in November.

“We had just finished the Cameron Duncan Memorial on the 18th of December that was played in his memory. It always is every year at the Waitākere Bears [Softball] Club. Then this thing happens, two weeks later.”

Cameron’s headstone, which has a special koru design, was “split in half, completely”.

“It probably wasn’t directly aimed at him but they certainly worked it over until the koru dropped. And that was disgusting.”

“It’s a special koru. It was standard stock, but the decorations on the koru talk about Cameron’s life and that’s where the disrespect comes from because he worked really hard for it – and he only had a short life. He managed to achieve a lot of stuff.

“This person had no regard for that at all, couldn’t care less.”

Cameron Duncan's headstone which had a koro design was split in half by vandals.

Sharon says Cameron loved softball and was an award-winning filmmaker who had “the greatest respect from Peter Jackson”.

“He was just going to be everything that every mother would want.”

A bonfire and damage to ‘every single plot’

Sharon’s daughter, Nelly Duncan (Ngāpuhi), says whānau believe the grave sites were vandalised on December 26 or 27. The vandals left “wreckage” everywhere, she says.

“Basically, talking to the groundsmen, they had started up in the corner of the urupā and just gone down every row. Even over in the pēpi isle, they’d gone over there and kicked everything over, tried to smash headstones. But they weren’t able to get a lot of them down, because there were boot marks and stuff all over the headstones. So they had tried.”

About three or four headstones were damaged from what Nelly could see.

“But every single plot had been damaged in some way. They had kicked ornaments off or smashed stuff.”

“Another one that I saw, someone had grabbed a tool of some sort and smashed just the photos – not the headstone itself, but just the photos on the headstone.”

The vandals even lit one of the grave sites on fire, Nelly says.

“One of the other whanaus [sic] there, they had a bonfire on it, lit on fire.”

Sharon says she feels for the whānau and the “poor woman” whose grave it was.

“I thought that’s hugely bad. Breaking a headstone is one thing, burning their grave – you know, come on. It’s beyond. I hope she chases them forever.”

Racism concern

Sharon and Nelly say they are concerned that the vandalism may have been racially motivated.

“We do believe it is racially motivated. I mean why else would they knock off the urupā? You know, they could have done anywhere,” Sharon says.

Nelly doesn’t know for certain if it was a racist attack but says there are indications it may have been.

“Me and my dad went up with my two nieces today, just tidied it up. We chucked some tino rangatiratanga flags up around the urupā just to say, ‘If this is a racist thing, mate, keep coming. We’re here and we’re ready.’”

Nelly Duncan with nieces Lexi and Katya with the tino rangatiratanga flag at her brother Cameron Duncan's gravesite.

“I don’t know [if it was targeted or random], everybody I’ve spoken to - and I had the same thought straight away - was ‘it’s a racist thing’ because it was only the Māori section. Waikumete is quite a big urupā but it was only the Māori section that had been targeted.”

Nelly says it is quite clear it is a Māori burial area.

“The area there, you see that it’s predominantly Māori.”

“It’s quite easy to see in a sense because it’s got a whole fenced-off area that basically looks like a pā or outline of a marae.”

“And just a lot of the ornaments that I had seen are Māori ornaments,” she says.

Nelly Duncan says "every single plot" had been damaged in some way. Her brother Cameron Duncan's headstone had a koro smashed off.

“Like, my brother had this mask I got for him years and years ago because he’s been gone 20 years now. This half-face with a Māori moko on it - and the other half was no design on it, because he was part-Māori, part-Pākehā.

“I had it lying on his grave – a Batman mask over the top of it. And these guys had left the Batman mask there, picked up the other mask and smashed that, you know.

“Looking around at the other stuff, a lot of the stuff that I could see with Māori designs on it had been kicked up, smashed.

“I don’t want to say it’s racist but I feel like it is. That is where my wairua went straight away – and talking to other people there today, they were all saying the same, ‘it feels racist.’”

Cameron Duncan was an award-winning filmmaker who had “the greatest respect from Peter Jackson”. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey/NZ Herald

Waikumete Cemetery and police responses

Sharon says Waikumete Cemetery staff have been kind and compassionate.

Their spokeswoman who first called to tell her the news, “She was really quite compassionate about it, so were the guys that worked there [clearing the damage]. I thought that was really kind and something you need when something like this happens.”

Nikki Nelson, Auckland Council manager, cemetery services, says the situation is clearly distressing for whānau.

“This is extremely distressing for the affected whānau and for our staff, and we strongly condemn the actions of these individuals,” she said.

“Auckland Council is aware of major vandalism and damage to a number of sites at Waikumete Cemetery. As soon as we were aware of the damage, we immediately notified the police and began contacting the whānau whose plots were most affected.

“While most of the damage occurred in the urupā area, there was also damage in the family mausoleum area and we do not believe the attack was targeted at this area but appears to be a random act of vandalism.”

“After forensics had cleared the site, our team began clearing what we could, including safely storing any ornaments that may have sentimental value. Please do reach out if you need any support from our team or need to locate any missing ornaments.

“In terms of who might be responsible, this is now a police matter, and we are assisting where we can,” Nelson says.

Police say their investigations are ongoing and ask anyone with information to get in touch.

“On 28 December Police received a report of wilful damage at an Auckland Council site on Great North Rd, Glen Eden. A scene examination has been undertaken and inquiries are ongoing.

“Anyone who has information that could assist with inquiries is asked to contact police by phone on 105, or online at 105.police.govt.nz using Update Report, referencing file number 231228/9358.”

‘They may be remorseful’

Sharon says she has her moments when she hopes karma will “bite” the vandals that did this - but by the same token, she doesn’t want to see anyone’s life ruined, if they are remorseful.

“I was driving down the motorway yesterday and I was thinking to myself may the wrath of 1000 pharaohs take their vengeance out on you ... because it just felt like grave robbery,” says Sharon, who has visited Egypt and seen the tombs “desecrated by people who couldn’t care less”.

The culprits are likely locals, she believes.

“They’ll be local, they’ve got to be local. They may well be someone’s brother, cousin or related to somebody in those graves. That’s going to make them look really bad.

“People are also saying name and shame them - but, you know, what I don’t want to do is ruin people’s lives forever when they may be remorseful – or they may not care less.”

At a minimum, she wants them to apologise and replace what has been damaged.

“Maybe we could think of a way of getting them to say, ‘look, we’re really sorry that we’ve done that.’”

“But from a cost point of view, they should replace whatever they’ve broken.”