An Oamaru boy who had his "Christmas money" stolen at the weekend was reunited with most of his cash yesterday.
A police spokeswoman said the 12-year-old boy was playing on his scooter at the Oamaru skate park, in Severn St, and did not see when three youths went through his backpack and took $140 about 4.45pm on Sunday.
But yesterday morning the parents of the youths police believed were responsible, aged between 14 and 18 years old, were contacted by a family member and $130 was returned.
The mother of the boy declined to speak to the Otago Daily Times yesterday. However, she did post to the ODT’s Facebook page to thank Oamaru police and friends for helping "with our search in locating the offenders".
"A happy ending, my son received his Xmas money back, hopefully lessons to be learned from this," she wrote.
The story in the ODT’s online edition yesterday attracted scores of comments from sympathetic and concerned readers, including those offering to give to the boy’s Christmas fund.
The police spokeswoman said the boys allegedly responsible for the theft would be dealt with by Youth Aid.
No further details were available.
