FORMER CONSTABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 177, 28 July 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

FORMER CONSTABLE.

TURNS SAFE BLOWER. Sentence of lour years' penal servitude was passed by the recorder (Sir Ernest Wild) at the Old Bailey, on Walter Potter, aged 00, an ex-policeman, ior being concerned in stealing a safe containing £1419 from a post office in High Street. Leyton. The safe was stolen and was found opened and abandoned at GraysOver £1000 of the contents had not been recovered. Potter, a detective said, had served in the Kent Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police. He was invalided out in 1919 with an irreproachable character. There were reasons for believing that during the last 12 months he had been engaged in crime, and that he was the ringleader of the safe robbery. From his acquaintance with police methods he knew how to avoid their activities. When arrested he had £44 10/ in Treasury notes, and at his house were 11 skeleton keys. In the front room of a house where his wife was staying at, Chatham was found a suitcase containing 4912 stamps. 814 postal orders and the post office date stamp, all of which had been taken there a few days before by Potter. Mr. Frederick Levy, defending, said Potter had been commended eight or nine times by the Commissioner of Police while he was in the Force, and lie had also been instrumental iu saving 18 lives from a fire. Two other men were sentenced with j Potter for their share in the robbery— j Alfred Davis, aged -li. to 17 months in the j second division, and Edward Peterson. 22. to 20 months' hard labour. Frederick | Sumpter, found guilty of recti* nig some of j the stolen stamps, was bound over. !