The graves of Kiwi motorsport legend Bruce McLaren and his family have been vandalised repeatedly – with an attempt to glue toy cars to a headstone and remove protective wrappings.
McLaren – who died in a crash aged 32 during testing in 1970 – was buried at Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland. His wife Patricia was also buried there when she died in 2016, alongside the motorsport legend’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law.
“We are lost for words as to why anyone would do this,” the Bruce McLaren Trust said in a social media post.
“A very kind offer has been made by The Grave Guardians, a voluntary organisation that restores headstones to repair the damage, for which we are extremely grateful.
“While this work is being undertaken, the stones are wrapped and unable to be viewed.”
George Stewart-Dalzell of Grave Guardians said she first came across the damage to the headstones in late September and that they had been damaged a further four times.
“It was absolute carnage, we wrapped them and, in the space of a day, someone has unwrapped it and had another crack at Bruce’s stone,” she said.
Around a dozen headstones in the area around the McLaren graves had also been splattered with gold paint.
In one instance, someone had tried to use builder’s epoxy to affix toy cars to Bruce’s and Patricia’s headstone, with bleach damage to the grave that belonged to McLaren’s sister and brother-in-law, she added.
Speaking to 1News from McLaren’s grave, where she was using a dental pick to scrape gold paint off the lettering, Stewart-Dalzell said she hoped the person didn’t have malicious intentions. Instead, she hoped it was a misguided attempt to clean the headstones.
“People think that headstones are public property because they’re in a cemetery and they can do what they like,” she said.
“I look at TikTok and Instagram and there’s people using water blasters and blow torches and wire brushes and stuff like that, and I think they think they can grab some paint from the two dollar shop and come and repaint, not realising that damages the stone.”
She said anyone who saw damage to graves should not try to make their own repairs.
Auckland Council cemetery services manager Nikki Nelson said the council “strongly condemns the actions of the individuals” who carried out any vandalism.
“Sadly, we do experience incidents of vandalism at Auckland cemeteries from time to time. Prevention is difficult because cemeteries are public places that can be visited at any time,” she said in a statement.
“We have CCTV at Waikumete, Manukau Memorial and North Shore Memorial cemeteries, with additional cameras recently installed at Waikumete Cemetery to help deter vandalism.”
She urged people to notify police via 105 if they discovered vandalism.
