NSW: Albury Mayor asks cemetery vandals to own up to damage
01 Apr 2009 9:15 PM
SYDNEY, April 1 AAP - The Mayor of Albury City Council has called on those responsible for destroying the graves of eight World War II diggers to own up to police.
Late on Monday night or in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the headstones on two graves at the Albury War Cemetery were smashed.
Another six were damaged.
Albury City Council Mayor Patricia Gould said it was a brazen act given the cemetery was on a well lit street with heavy traffic.
"I've seen the results today. The community is outraged at what could happen to this cemetery to honour those who have lost their lives in war," she told AAP on Wednesday evening.
The damaged graves belonged to soldiers who had died between 1945 and 1947 while serving in World War II.
All were in the same row.
Ms Gould said vandals had not previously caused trouble in that part of the cemetery, but there had been "a few bits of trouble" in other parts of the cemetery.
A cemetery across the road, Albury Pioneer Cemetery, had been the target of malicious damage several times.
In May 2008 police charged two youths aged 13 and 15 over the smashing of more than 100 graves and headstones at the cemetery.
"We have had some youths working in that area who were responsible for some damage and they did come back and work for several weeks to restore some of the graves that had been destroyed," Ms Gould said.
She called on the culprits of the latest damage at Albury War Cemetery to turn themselves into police "so their conscience can be (relieved) of the heavy burden they must be carrying."
Albury RSL president Mick Fowler said the attack had made him sick.
"The people who have done this have no community pride. They obviously have no link between them and anyone who has served this country because if they had they wouldn't have done this," he told the Herald Sun.
