ASSAULT AND ROBBERY.

Auckland Star, Volume 246, Issue 246, 16 October 1926, Page 23

ASSAULT AND ROBBERY.

YOUNG WOMAN ATTACKED. MYSTERIOUS iHULL OUTRAGE. The iron shell of a Mills hand-grenade fastened to the end of an iron bar is the only clue the East Riding police have obtained to assist them in their search for a man who nearly bludgeoned to death Miss Lavinia Mary Prissick. a pretty girl employed as cook at the Hull Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Her handbag, which contained several pounds, is missing. She was found by workmen in a field a few hundred yards from the sanatorium Her head was terribly battered and her face anel hair covered with blood, and she w-as at first thought to lie dead. The previous day Miss Prissick had visited her sister and mother, who live in Brighton Street, Hull, riding there on a bicycle. After tea she said she would go back to the sanatorium by omnibus, as there was a strong wind blowing. No Men Friends. The matron of the sanatorium states that the girl had no men friends so far as sheknew, and that her only interests were her work and her home. Her fiance was killed during the war. •She had apparently been waylaid by a ruan who had waited in a recess formed where a gate stands back about a foot from the roasl and dragged through the partly open gate into a tleld, where siie was struck on the head with the bomb. About a yard from the gateway the ground was stained with blood. She apparently attempted to escape from the man. climbed over a fence, and ran into the middle of a field, where she was again attacked and fell insensible. A man is said to have been seen actinc suspiciously on Castle Hill, .near the phu'e where the girl was found. He was wheeling a bicycle on the road about the time Miss Prissick left the omnibus in Cottingham, and it is alleged that he was pretending to repair his bicycle. The owner of the field lives near by, but no member of his household heard screams or cries for help, probably owing to the strong wind which was blowing.