Car owner puzzled

Press, 8 December 1984, Page 8

Car owner puzzled

For a while yesterday it seemed as though this Mini was going to stay in the Avon River. Its owner was more concerned about how it got there than how to get it out.

When the police telephoned the owner, Mr Theo Papageorge, yesterday morning to tell him his car was in the river beside Cambridge Terrace he was “flabbergasted.” "The car didn’t go. It had been sitting in the alleyway beside my place in Cashel Street for six months with the battery disconnected,” he said.

Mr Papageorge’s reaction was to refuse to pay to have the car towed away.

“I am a senior citizen who has paid his rates and taxes for years, then these criminals go and do such a stupid thing,” he said.

“I later realised that it was my responsibility to get it towed away, so I arranged that with my garage,” he said. The car was in the river for most of the day. The police approached Christchurch City Council officers, who were going to remove it. What Mr Papageorge

could not understand was how the car got there. It was parked in an alley leading into the City Mall. As the Mini was immobile the car converters must have pushed it along the Mall, across the Bridge of Remembrance, down the steps, across Cambridge Terrace and into the river, he said. The car’s battery, spare tyre, and another wheel were stolen. “I can’t see why they took my car. There are so many flash new cars about, why would they pick on an old junk heap like that?” Mr Papageorge said.