Bales lifted in city

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 1

Bales lifted in city

The thief, or thieves, who picked up property worth more than $7OO from the footpath of a busy Christchurch street this week would have needed considerably more than light fingers. Somehow, in broad daylight, two 150 kg bales of wool were spirited away. The wool — destined for Dalgetys store in Moorhouse Avenue — had fallen from a truck being driven by the wife of a Hawarden farmer. According to Dalgety’s,

she panicked when the two heavy bales bounced gaily across the road near the intersection of Barbadoes and Coventry streets. She ignored the mishap and pressed on to tell the wool store of the accident. In the meantime, two young men working on a building site nearby had rolled the bales to the safety of the footpath. That was about 4.30 p.m. When the salvage crew and forklift arrived from Dalgety’s about

15 minutes later, the bales were nowhere to be seen. “It would have taken a couple of good men at least to lift them on to a truck.” said a spokesman for the firm. However, the stolen wool — worth at least $7OO at present prices — would not be hard to sell to a dealer, he said. The Christchurch police are baffled by the theft. All they can suggest is that the" wool might have been taken into custody by a well-meaning passer-by — “like a missing purse."