[CPProt.net] New Zealand: Police are considering charging a newspaper editor and manager who helped broker the return of a stolen $250, 000 sculpture yesterday

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Paper vexes police over stolen sculpture 
19 October 2005  
By COLIN MARSHALL of NZPA 

Police are considering charging a newspaper editor and manager who helped
broker the return of a stolen $250,000 sculpture yesterday. 


The work Long Horizon by sculptor Paul Dibble was taken from Waikanae
beachfront restaurant Swell earlier this month. 

Fearing the one-tonne sculpture would be melted down and sold for its scrap
value, its owners offered a $10,000 reward. 

Yesterday Kapiti Observer editor Diane Joyce was contacted by a man claiming
to be a go-between for the people holding the sculpture. 

Newspaper manager Tony Young went with restaurant co-owner Chris Cameron for
the successful swap. 

But police were not notified until after the rendezvous and, despite making
one arrest already, Kapiti police Senior Sergeant Alasdair Macmillan was far
from pleased with being kept out of the loop until the swap was completed. 

"That was certainly disappointing - that despite the fact that they had been
in receipt of this information for a considerable period of time they chose
deliberately not to contact police and chose to do it the way that they
did," he told NZPA. 

AdvertisementAdvertisementMr Macmillan said he could not discount the
possibility that the manager and editor had committed a criminal offence. 

"We could look at (the charge of) aiding and abetting an extortion. 

"If it turns out that they withheld that information and knowingly assisted
the third party to broker the deal, they would probably have committed a
criminal offence but I'm certainly not going to say one way or the other.
There's still a long way to go (in the investigation)." 

People could have been killed if the encounter had gone wrong, he said. 

"They didn't take into consideration the possibility of violence - of it
being a set-up. 

"You can imagine if it turned nasty these guys knew that they were going to
be there with $10,000. They were naive." 

The one arrest so far has been a 30-year-old Otaki man, who was charged with
being an accessory after the fact to theft and appeared in Porirua District
Court today. 

He was remanded on bail to reappear in the same court on November 29. 

Mr Macmillan was hopeful police would catch the other people involved in the
theft, saying they had positive lines of inquiry. "We're still looking for
the second person in the van and obviously the $10,000." 

However, restaurant owners Maggie Mouat and Gavin Bradle yesterday said they
were delighted to have the sculpture back and Dibble was ecstatic his work
of art had been returned.