'SMASH AND GRAB'

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 5

'SMASH AND GRAB'

DIAMOND SNATCHERS. STARTLING SYDNEY OUTRAGE DESPERADOES IN CAR. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 20. On Friday evening the shops remain open here till 0 o'clock or later instead of closing at 5.30 or 6 o'clock; and on Friday nights our streets are crowded, and our shops are packed almost to the doors. Just before 7 o'clock last Friday evening a car drew up outside Angus and Coote's, one of the largest jeweller firms in Sydney. This shop is in George J Street, in the heart of the city, and the [circumstances, to the ordinary onlooker, could not have seemed propitious for violent robbery. However, out of the car stepped a well-dressed young man carrying an oblong parcel wrapped in brown paper, and walking deliberately up to the shopfront—which is always a dazzling spectacle at night—he threw his parcel at the window.

The parcel contained a brick and the crash it made sounded as if the whole of the shopfront had fallen in. That is the testimony of Mr. Barnett, manager of Angus and Coote's, who was in the shop, and hearing the noise, surmised the cause and at once rushed out on to the footwalk. But he was too late. Within 15 seconds the well-dressed young man who had thrown the brick had scooped up three trays containing diamond rings, had drawn a revolver end shaken off a detaining hand, and then leaping into the car, which was already on the move, had been borne rapidly away.

The plucky fellow who intervened—he was one of the shopmen from Murdoch's clothing store close at hand —had no chance against the revolver; and a policeman who tried to stop the car as, defying all signals, it ran up Park Street at headlong speed, was hurled to- the ground. The car turned into Elizabeth Street and thence into Oxford Street, going at a rate which threatenei everyone in its way with, disaster; and there

it was lost in the maelstrom of traffic that surges along that narrow thoroughfare ceaselessly on Friday evening. Loss Nearly £3000. When Mr. Barnett and his subordinates came to take stock of their losses, they found that things might have beeu.nmch worse. There were rings to the value of ! £35,000 in that window—mostly diamonds, in platinum setting, displayed on 80 trays and worth, in some cases, hundreds of pounds apiece. The enterprising "burglar has made a judicious selection, for the trays that he seized contained at least £5000 worth of rings as they stood in the window. But in his haste, and his short struggle with the bystander, the thief spilled many of them on the footpath, whence they were salvaged by tho crowd and handed back to the shopmen. The loss to Angus and Coote was nearly £3000—apart from £25 worth of plateglass—but or course the diamonds were insured.

The police were speedily on the track 01 the fugitives, but they had very little to go upon. Mr. Barnett and other bystanders had taken the number of the car, but when the police went round to interview the owner lie was under the impression that his car was standing quietly in the street near his house, and was amazed to find that it had been commandeered for sucli a purpose. Early i on Sunday morning the car was found abandoned in Riley Street, Surry Hills. In it were two empty trays and the brick that had done all the damage still in its neat brown covering. But there was also on the floor a revolver cartridge, which had been struck by the hammer but had failed to explode—and thereby hangs a tale. j

Though the whole incident was "staged" at railroad speed, there is plenty of evidence available about the details, and this "smash and run" experiment had evidently been prepared with forethought and care. An employee of Nock and Kirby's, on the other side of the road, counted three men in the car, of whom at least two had revolvers ""covering" the neatly dressed man with the brick. When they drove off they were followed closely by a car containing two men who, pretending to pursue them, kept carefully between them and the rest of the traffic, ana evidently performed the duty of "shepherding" them to safety. As the car sped up Park Street through Hyde Park to turn round College Street into Oxford Street it met a.

man, Eric Whitley, crossing toward Elizabeth Street. He tried to dodge it, but it was going 50 miles an hour and he had no chance. Yet in some astonishing fashion when the car struck his chest, his legs and arms gripped the mudguard and radiator, and he swung himself up Vγ the help of the number plate till he was facing the driver. A man leaned out of the car levelling a I revolver. "Get off! you !" he yelled. "Fall off!" and he emphasised his remark with a threat about "bullets"' if the unfortunate man clinging to tlie radiator refused to comply. Whitley heard nothing more above the j roar of the car, now forced to do utmost i speed but, making a desperate effort to ■ save himself, he dropped off the car, anil I except for a few bruises, by really wonderful good luck he escaped unhurt. But when the police found the car tlie telltale bullet proved to their experienced eyes that the bandits had actually tried to shoot the man clinging helplessly to j his precarious perch, and he escaped I only because, by sheer accident, the cari tiiclge failed to explode. [ Gangsters from Abroad? j This alone is enough to indicate that the bandits were desperadoes of an unusually dangerous type. But apart from j thi.s, the police are convinced that this was not the work of any of the "regulars," well known to them, who live by robbery and burglary in and around Sydney. The police believe that gangsters from Melbourne or some other city are responsible for this escapade—as also for the "sticking up" of the picI ture theatre manager at Bondi last ! week. They believe also that the robI bers have arranged already with "fences," or receivers of stolen goods, to take the diamonds, and that they can melt down the "swag," disposing of the metal and setting the diamonds without much fear of detection. Of course, the high value of many of the stones may be an obstacle to a profitable "deal," but they are not easy to identify, and the bandits have left very few clues behind. Lloyd's office, where the diamonds were insured, at first offered £250 reward for their recovery, and to-day it raised the offer to £500. No doubt the police are doing their best under discouraging circumstances. But it is certainly disconcerting to find that the crowded streets of this •wealthy and populous city are not secure againet such desperate outrages.