Woman arrested over alleged vandalism of Auckland memorial statue

Monday, 15 June 2020

A woman has been arrested after allegedly vandalising a memorial statue in Auckland over the weekend.

The 25-year-old was charged with wilful damage to a statue in Ōtāhuhu, police said.

Police have not revealed which statue it was, but Auckland Council told Stuff the Ōtāhuhu First World War Memorial on Great South Road had been 'heavily tagged' on Sunday afternoon.

The woman was due to appear in the Manukau District Court on Thursday.

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The memorial, at Monument Corner, is close to another controversial monument, to Colonel Marmaduke Nixon – who led attacks on Waikato Māori in the New Zealand wars which killed 12 people.

Police also spoke to a group of young people who were seen tagging a statue with chalk in Albert Park on Sunday, a spokesman said.

'The group were spoken to and given a warning and made to wash the chalk off the statue.'

The vandalism comes after leaders of the Māori Party called for an inquiry into colonial monuments and statues, in the wake of George Floyd's death in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement.