By Beckie Wilson
After only a month of owning his shiny pride and joy, a Masterton man woke yesterday morning to find his silver Mazda missing – but it was not for long.
While walking to lunch, he saw a similar-looking car out of the corner of his eye in a car park.
“I thought ‘Man, I wish I had mine back’ and as I got closer, I could just make out the number plate,” Chris Parkinson said.
“I couldn’t believe it, it was mine.”
He had found his stolen car just hours after reporting it missing to police.
He had parked his car outside his Keaton St address, and locked it, at about 9pm on Wednesday.
When he went out the next morning, “it was gone”.
“I didn’t hear anything, and the alarm didn’t go off, so they knew what they were doing.”
“I was walking out to go to Kuripuni… and I just saw it out the corner of my eye, a silver Atenza just like mine.”
The thieves knew what they were doing, he said. The rear window had been broken, and the ignition switch was “non-existent”.
“The cops looked for fingerprints but they must’ve been wearing gloves,” he said.
Mr Parkinson said nothing was visible in his car, but he had left his wallet in the console which was taken.
While he admits, he doesn’t know cars very well, but said his new 2002 Mazda Atenza “is flash, but not overly”.
“I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to steal it.”
Mr Parkinson said he did not know if any of his neighbours had been targets for car thieves, but had heard of it happening a lot lately.
A friend loaded photos and a description of the stolen car to Facebook page Wairarapa Online Garage Sale early yesterday.
The post was shared over 30 times and received dozens of comments.
“I was quite impressed lots of people shared it on Facebook, a lot of goodwill behind it.
“I would like to thank everyone for that.”
