[MSN] New Zealand: Treasure stash never revealed

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Treasure stash never revealed

20.02.2007
By Mike Barrington

Keith Anthony McEwen was not long out of prison when he committed the abduction which has put him back behind bars.

He was jailed for 8 years in 2000 after admitting stealing a treasure trove of jewellery while employed as a chef at the Kelly Tarlton Shipwreck Museum at Waitangi.

The stolen haul included gold sovereigns that Mr Tarlton, a diver, had salvaged from the ship Elingamite, wrecked at Three Kings Islands north of Cape Reinga in 1902, and part of the Rothschild collection he recovered from the ship Tasmania which sank near Gisborne in 1897.

A collection of greenstone and gold coins also disappeared.
 
The jewellery was not found and an insurance company rejected a $300,000 insurance claim from the diver's widow, Rosemary Tarlton, because the theft was carried out by an employee working at the museum set up on the scow Tui.

During sentencing submissions, the Whangarei District Court was told that McEwen would not help to recover the goods because it was worth more than his life to do so. His lawyer said McEwen might have been stealing to order after being subjected to standover tactics and debt-recovery demands from an earlier stint in prison.

Mrs Tarlton visited McEwen several times in Mt Eden prison in an attempt to find out where the stolen treasure had gone, but to no avail.

"He knows where the jewellery is, but he won't tell me," she said at the time.

Sentencing McEwen for the theft, Judge Arthur Tompkins said the stolen goods were of national and international importance and it was significant that McEwen had refused to help recover any of the items.

Judge Tompkins noted McEwen would have received a lesser term if he had shown remorse and helped retrieve the treasure. 

http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/