N.Y. thieves shatter runner’s dream

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 10

N.Y. thieves shatter runner’s dream

NZPA-Reuter New York A Briton who has run almost all the way round the world to raise money for charity has been robbed of everything he owns by two men who broke into his car in a theft watched by 20 people and filmed by a television camera crew.

Besides the TV crew and the spectators, a traffic warden was also busily writing a parking ticket for the car parked behind his in front of a Manhattan hotel.

Henry Weston, who was raising money for the World Wildlife Fund in his bid to become the first man to run around the world, said he would not now continue his quest for the record books.

“I’m totally devastated. I have lost everything I possess in the world. This is the end. My run finishes here.”

Mr Weston had been due to fly from New York to Ireland. After running across Ireland he was to take a ferry to Liverpool and run the final leg of his global marathon to London. But his dream had been shattered, he said. “I just haven’t got the heart to carry on. What’s the point?”

Mr Weston, aged 24, had packed everything in his car and was having a meal in his room when the thieves struck.

“I received a phone call from a television camera crew who were passing by when they saw the thieves, carrying cameras and suitcases, running away from my car. They had previously filmed me and recognised the car.”

When he arrived at the scene about 20 witnesses told him what had happened. “What really amazed

me was that all these people just stood around and let it happen. They didn’t try and stop the two thieves and they didn’t bother to call the police. “They told me how the two men had physically pulled a window out of the car and had taken everything in it except a briefcase. They even said a traffic warden had been writing a ticket for the car parked next to mine as the robbery was taking place.” Spectators had told him the two thieves had left his briefcase in the car but that a third man, dressed in a business suit, had strolled by, put his hand through the open window, and had made off with it.

A jubilant Mr Weston arrived in New York last week to be greeted on the steps of City Hall by the Mayor, Mr Edward Koch.