ATTEMPTED BANK ROBBERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 169, 18 July 1924, Page 7

ATTEMPTED BANK ROBBERY.

CASHIER'S KEYS STOLEN. TELEPHONE WIRES CUT. MANAGER FIRES AT THIEF. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WAIMATE, this day. A sensation has been provided by an attempted robbery on the premises of the Bank of New South Wales, and the theft of £12 from tho safe of the Criterion Hotel between three and four o'clock this morning. Some time after 3 a.m., the wife of the hotel licensee, Mrs. V>. Coffey, heard a bottle crash in the private bar. She opened the bedroom door, but hearing no further sound went back to bed. When the hotel was opened at nine o'clock it was found that £12 in silver was missing from the safe. The safe had been opened and locked up again. About 4 o'clock Mr. Forbes White, cashier of the Bank of Lew South Wales, who sleeps on the premises, heard a sound in the back yard. On opening his bedroom window he saw an indistinct figure in the faint moonlight standing just in the back door of the manager's room, which opens into the yard, and which was almost directly beneath him. Mr. White fired at the intruder, but missed. The man sprinted down the yard and through a high board fence, locking the gate after him. Mr. White then found tho gas had been turned off at the meter and the telephone wires cut in the front office. A passing baker called in the police, but the burglar had made his getaway. Observation at the bank goes to show that the burglar was a cool, experienced hand. He had entered from the winuow, then opened the back door in readiness for sudden flight. He had obtained Mr. White's keys without disturbing the latter, but thes<! -were UEeless ( without the manager's keys. The occurrence at the hotel supports the assumption arrived at on a previous occasion when the safe was twice robbed, and on the latter occasion rclocked, that the thief is possessed of the key.