Thief took Foodbank worker’s cellphone

A man is suspected of stealing a foodbank worker’s cell phone containing precious family photos - and then asking her for a package of aid.

‘‘He couldn’t eyeball me, he kept looking down,’’ Hawera Foodbank chairman Hazel Robinson said.

She noticed the odd demeanour of the man when he was in her office asking her for food on Monday.

‘‘He had the gall to come and ask for food after he’d done it.’’

It was a short time later that she realised her personal phone, with precious photos on it, had vanished from a shelf near her desk when she popped out to another room to get goods for another customer.

The man she suspected of pinching it had been waiting in a reception area adjourning her tiny office at the time.

Although her daughter had since bought her a new phone, she had been unable to replace the photos on it.

‘‘My little great grand-daughter had her first birthday, and there’s some of my other little grandies. They’re gone, I won’t get them back. I’m just gutted with it really.’’

Robinson said she had spoken with the Hawera police about the theft.

’’The police know who it is and I know who it is, I’ve seen him on the street since. He will not be coming back here. It was pretty low.’’

Robinson said she had been volunteering for years with the Foodbank, since it started in Hawera, and had never before had anything belonging to her taken.

‘‘I really felt so gutted, I felt like shutting the door, then I thought, why punish everybody for one person?

‘‘Some people who come in here are really down and out, feeling really humbled to come in here, then there are these other who come in and think it’s their right to be fed, but that’s life, my dear,’’ she said.

She had placed a new sign barring entry to her office on the door, and had begun keeping her own possessions locked away when the food bank is open.