KIDNAP PLOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 13

KIDNAP PLOT.

AUSTRALIAN CHILD. £200 DEMANDED FROM FATHER. TEACHER'S WISE PRECAUTION (Fronf Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 30. Belmore i.s ;: little country town about eight miles from Sydney, on the Bankr?towu line; ami something happened there about, six weeks ago which has caused serious apprehension not only to ths residents in that locality, but to the police a* well.

In North Belinore liveis'Mr. C. D. McInnes, a wealthy shearing contractor well known throughout the district. Hi* little daughter, Hazel, aged nine years, attends the local school. One afternoon in the second week of April a taxi arrived at the school -ate and the driver asked for Hazel Mclnnes. In reply to a natural inquiry from the school mistress, the driver said that he had been told to call at the .school for ihe child, because her mother was lying dangerously ill at the Coast ' Hospital, and Hazel'was to go there to see her. The teacher questioned the child, who said that she did Hot know that her mother, was ill; and the school mistress therefore asked the driver to call at the McTnne.s home with Hazel, to find out what had happened. The driver did eo—he seems to have .acted in good faith throughout—and they found Mrs. Me[nnes at home, and <|tiite well. The mother naturally asked the driver to explain, but he could only say that he had received a •telephone message asking him to call for the child. "Draw £200 From Bank." Mr. Mcfnnes, who was also at home, then happened to go to bis letter box, and there he found a letter which, he says, was certainly not there half an hour before. It was written in black letters and it. informed him that if he did not at once draw £200 from the bank, in small notes, and hold them till he received further instructions, lie would not see his daughter alive again; and if he attempted to call in the poii-e tlu same consequences would follow.

As Hazel was now at home and safe, Mr. Mc I lines at once telephoned the nearest police station at Campsie, and the officers of the law arrived on il\a scene. The father naturally said nothing that could alarm tlie child, but it was decided that the taxi diner snou'd ts>ke the child i-ifh him in the ear towauls the Coast Hospital, and flint the police Mould follow in their ov.i c:ir, to see if any attack were made ,i|'j-.i the child. For they surmised that the kid-nappers-meant to tarry off the ;iild L>..' intercepting the ear on this lonely road. However, nothing happened, and the police incline to the belief that a confederate must have watched the tux* man, and becoming suspicious must have wcrncd the otlur conspirators'•.in time to k.:ep away. Mr. McTnnes tlunVs that they were possibly watching him to see what stens he would take, and if he had gone to* the bank they would have attacked him and seized the money. - Warning to Others. Either theory may be correct, but nothing has happened since to elucidate the incident, and police and parents arc still completely mystified. Mr. Mclnnes has no enemies, and cannot believe that there was any vindictive motive behind this terrible threat. But the police are strongly of the opinion that some unscrupulous criminal, perhaps stimulated by American gangland stories, did actually attempt to get this child into his power, with the object of extorting money from her parents. At first the police wished to keep the matter secret, so that they might not be hampered in their investigations, but Mr. Mclnnes lias now insisted on publishing the facts as a warning to parents, teachers and children. - So far as the safety of our public school children is concerned, it is some satisfaction to learn, from Mr. G. Ross Thomas, Director of Education, that "all teachers are under definite instructions not to allow children into the custody of callers who cannot establish their bona fides beyond all shadow of doubt." This is consoling, so far as it goes. But the fact remains that the police believe that this was an attempt to introduce into this country one of the most horrible crimes of the American underworld, and that it only, by a fortunate accident that the criminals were foiled.