BURGLARY ATTEMPT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 153, 10 April 1933, Page 3

BURGLARY ATTEMPT.

JEWELS WORTH £IOO,OOO. HOLE CUT IN ROOF. Extraordinary features of an attempted burglary—attributed to an expert gang who Jiad apparently made tleep-laid plans to steal more than £IOO,OOO worth of jewels—are puzzling Scotland Yard. Two cylinders of acetylene and oxygen were found recently on the first floor of a building in Duke Street, St. James'. A dozen tiles had been torn from the roof of an adjoining outhouse of the ship of Mr William Ogden, a jeweller, of King Street. There was every indication that a gang of expert safe-breakers had planned a week-end raid on the shop. Jewels, the value of which runs into six figures, are kept in a safe there. The failure of the raid is a mystery. The hole .in the roof was big enough to admit a full-grown man, and a window above had also been forced open, yet nobody had entered the shop. Equally mysterious is the way in which the would-be safe-breakers entered the Duke Street building. A trapdoor in the roof had been removed. This at first seemed to explain simply how the raiders broke into the premises, but a close examination convinced the Scotland Yard detectives that the trapdoor had been, forced open from the inside. The raiders had no reason to go higher than the first floor to climb on to the roof of the jeweller's outhouse. Therefore the open trapdoor was apparently a "blind" to deceive the police about the method of entry. The attempted raid bore the hallmark of "week-end thieves" who conceal themselves in a building on a Saturday and have the rest of the day and all Sunday to steal at their leisure.