NEARLY CAUGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 292, 10 December 1929, Page 8

NEARLY CAUGHT.

» CRACKSMAN IN DUNEDIN. POLICEMAN ON HIS HEELS. SAVINGS BANK SAFE WRECKED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, Monday. A large safe in the branch office of the Dunedin Savings Bank, in Cargill Road, was blown open by dynamite during the week-end. When the members of the staff arrived there this morning they found the front of the safe blown out, and lying in a twisted heap some feet away, and the books which it had contained were lying in confusion all over the floor. No money is ever left on the branch premises, so the intruder got nothing for his trouble except a loaded fivechambered revolver, which had been under the teller's desk. Investigation showed that entry had apparently been made through a window at the rear of the building. In view of the fact that a single pair of footprints was found on the bank counter, and from what occurred at the Hon. W. B. Taverner's offices in the same locality, it would appear that not only these attempts, but also those recently on the Caversham post office and Messrs. Cossens and Black's premises, were the work of one man. Two constables in plain clothes were patrolling King Edward Street about three o'clock on Sunday morning, and on one of them going to the railway embankment at Kensington so that he could overlook the surrounding buildings, he noticed that a skylight in Mr. Taverner's offices was broken. He went to investigate, at the same time calling on his mate to watch the front door.

Before the police could reach there the front door was opened and a man dashed out and ran away in the direction of Cargill Road. The constable shouted to another policeman who was on his regular beat further along the I street, and he immediately gave chase. The man, however, was fleet of foot, and aided by the darkness, he disappeared down one of the, side streets off Cargill Road. At one stage the constable was within a few yards of him. This morning two boys found a revolver, some fuse and detonators, a cold chisel and a jemmy wrapped in brown paper lying behind a bush near the entrance to the beach at St. Kilda. The revolver was later identified as the one which was stolen from the bank. •