Gary the Gorilla statue 'sawn in half' after theft

A giant gorilla statue which was stolen from a Lanarkshire garden centre a year ago was "sawn in half" before being discarded under a hedge, according to its owner.

The 8ft (2.4m) fibreglass ornament, named Gary the Gorilla, was reported missing from Reynard Nursery in Carluke last March.

On Friday he was discovered in a layby on the A92 near Dundee.

However owner Andrew Scott said he was "happy in one way" to have him back.

BEAR Scotland staff, responsible for maintaining Scotland's trunk roads network, discovered Gary and reunited him with Mr Scott after reading a BBC Scotland News article about the theft.

They tracked down the garden centre on social media and arranged for it to be collected by Mr Scott.

Mr Scott said Gary, who was used as a signpost to the centre, was popular among locals and had welcomed visitors for the last 10 years.

He told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "We've got Gary back, but only Gary's back. He's been sawn in half.

"It was a bit of disappointment when we went to pick him up from Dundee of all places.

"He's rather bulky and the only way you'll fit him through a normal door is by sawing him in half and that way you can hide him in the house or put him on a wall - but that's the only reason I can think of."

Gary the Gorilla was reported stolen on Sunday 19 March last year.

CCTV showed a car arrived at the nursery around 22:30 before the occupants unbolted the ornament. A van returned nearly two hours later and removed Gary from the premises.

The vehicle was last seen leaving the garden centre and heading in the general Glasgow direction.

Mr Scott said: "It was quite an elaborate theft, there were about five people involved in the theft but we could never get a registration of the vehicle."

In April last year, Mr Scott had high hopes of a reunion when he was sent photos of a similar-looking primate tied to a trailer on the M25 and on the M40 near Warwick.

However once the police mapped out the movements of the gorilla, it was determined that the statue was one of several versions made by the manufacturer.

He said: "Someone else bought one of Gary's brothers from London and transported him up on the motorway two weeks later and that caused a lot of online commotion.

"I have since spoken to the person who bought Gary's brother and he was actually quite scared with the amount of attention his gorilla was getting."

But almost exactly a year on, the famous gorilla statue was spotted on the side of the A92 between Dundee and Arbroath.

Andy Moir, a BEAR Scotland superintendent on the A92, said: "We were out on our usual morning route inspection when we spotted something lurking in the bushes at the back of a layby.

"When we pulled in to check it out we were pretty shocked to see a gorilla's bum staring us in the face.

"After we composed ourselves we managed to catch the escapee in the van and take it back to the depot where we set about trying to figure out where it came from.

"A little digging online found some articles about a gorilla stolen from Carluke garden centre last year ad we were delighted to be able to reintroduce Gary to his troop."

Mr Scott says he hopes the other half of Gary will be returned to him one day.

"I'm at Tesco just now buying Gorilla glue in case the other half happens to appear," he said. "But for now, we're planning to fix him to the wall in the garden centre and put a sign up above him saying 'Gary's back'.

"We would love to have the front of him as well."