Firebugs caught on surveillance camera

03.04.2007

BY GERALD FORD "WE got the buggers on tape," Kuripuni businessman Dave Borman said yesterday of a group of people who set a fire next to the building he plans to turn into an art gallery and cafe. At 3.15am on Saturday, Masterton police returning from a callout to Harley Street noticed a fire in wood offcuts that had been set alight right next door to Mr Borman's two-storey building in Queen Street. They put out the fire before fire officers arrived. Mr Borman said the fire "wasn't under the building" and "didn't look like an arson attack". The fire had taken some time to get moving because the pieces of wood were quite large, and it had been lit with somebody's unopened mail.

Cameras Mr Borman had installed picked up the damage. Mr Borman said he had installed the cameras after the Christmas-morning theft of a large pot and tree outside his Countryman restaurant, which is next door to the relocated building. On Saturday night, thieves attacked the remained potted tree, but "quite apart from the two barrow-loads of earth", the pot had been bolted down. "They tried for about five minutes to dislodge it." Not to be deterred, the thieves dug out the tree and carried it away in a wheelchair. Mr Borman said he was "glad he put the surveillance in" and was hopeful for a result, as the tapes are "now with the police".