Vandals in churches

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34045, 8 January 1976, Page 1

Vandals in churches

Prayer books and Bibles were torn up. Communion wine was consumed, candles were broken, and priests’ vestiments w ere t hrown about {in a spate of vandalism in three churches at Cheviot some time before 8 a.m. yesterday.

The vicar of St John’s Anglican Church (the Rev. W. R. Otter) said that when he went to the church at 9.15 a.m. he found a side door locked, which he thought unusual. He went to the main entrance and saw a young person who ran off when spoken to.

Inside the church, said Mr Otter, he found Bibles and prayer books ripped up, candles and linen from the altar broken and strewn about, and some of the Communion wine consumed. One of the doors had been bolted from the inside. “What saddens me is not so much the damage but that this is the type of society we are living in today and that this is how young people amuse themselves,” said Mr Otter. The damage in the church had been cleaned up, although he could give no estimate of the cost. The Rev. A. J. Crawford, of the Knox Presbyterian Church, said that folders, annual reports, and church news had been torn up. and confetti strewn everywhere, in his church. There were indentations in the Communion Table which appeared as though someone had trampled over it.

The priest of St Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church is not resident in Cheviot. Mr Crawford said it was unlikely he knew of the vandalism in this church. Constable I. R. Middlemiss, of Cheviot, said that papers, books, prayer books, missals, and priests’ vestments had been thrown about in St Anthony’s. The damage was not a great deal as regards cost, but the church was “in a shambles.” Constable Middlemiss said that in the Anglican church, kneelers had been used as missiles to throw at the altar,

candles had been knocked over and broken, and 30 pages had been torn from a big Bible on the lectern. Other books had been thrown about and pages torn from I them. Constable Middlemiss said (that two children, aged 14 1

and 10, had been apprehended, and would probably appear in the Dunedin Children and Young Persons Court, after further inquiries had been made, charged with wilful damage. They had been on holiday at Cheviot, lhe said