Police are responding to a spike in copper thefts after a Dunedin church was targeted within days of $10,000 of copper being taken from another. When All Saints Anglican Church staff showed up to work on August 13, they noticed copper downpipes and guttering had been removed and taken away. Dunedin North parish vicar’s warden Heather Brooks said this sort of crime was particularly difficult as they were in the process of restoring the church to its original likeness. “So this is particularly vexing — we’re pretty cross about it.” The downstream effect might be that they would not reinstall copper piping, despite it being the most historically sensitive material to use. “The point is to try and keep these buildings as original as possible … we take our responsibility towards these old buildings quite seriously because this is Dunedin. Our buildings are one of the attractions of Dunedin.” Dr Brooks said they were told they had not been the first church targeted. Several other Dunedin churches had been the target of copper thefts this year. “We’re clearly being specifically targeted — even if it’s covered by insurance, we all have to pay the excess.” She hoped someone knew something, or had heard anything and could let them know, she said. They were currently tossing up the idea of reinstalling new copper pipes but with some sort of “indestructible” brackets, or whether they should install CCTV to monitor the pipes. “Maybe somebody will ring up and say, ‘Oh, I know where that is, it’s in my neighbour’s garden’, or something. “It would be so great if we could get it back, it really would … but, of course, it might have been shipped out of Dunedin already.” Police were making inquiries into the incident and understood the community was concerned about an uplift in this type of offending, with several community buildings being targeted for copper items, a spokesperson said. On Tuesday, a 60-year-old man appeared in court and admitted a charge of burglary relating to an incident earlier this month when police executed a search warrant and found about $10,000 worth of copper. Court documents reveal it was taken from Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church in Central Dunedin. The defendant was remanded in custody and his sentencing was scheduled for September. Police asked anyone who saw suspicious activity around copper items, or had been provided scrap copper that could be from suspicious origins, to contact them immediately on 111 with as much information as safely possible.
