MAN'S BODY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 300, 20 December 1938, Page 12

MAN'S BODY.

LYING BESIDE SAFE. POWERFUL EXPLOSIVE USED. BROTHER ARRESTED. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LOXDOX, December 6. Police called by telephone to an inn at Gateshead-on-Tyne, to-Jay found a man lying (lead in the cellar near a wall safe wliieli had been blown open. The dead man, who had apparently been struck by the heavy metal door of .the safe -following an explosion, was Robert Richards, aged 38, of Richard Street, Eta wick, father of four, who had recently returned from the Kentish coalfields. This afternoon the police stated: — The man was killed by attempting to force open a safe by the use of explosives at the Prince of Wales public house in Romulus Street, Gateshead, in the early hours of this morning. The man's brother is in custody and will appear before the magistrates at the Court on Monday morning. The brother is Walter Richards, aged 41, of Xoble Street, Elswick. Notes and Coin on Floor. First news of the tragedy was revealed in a telephone call to police headquarters. Flying Squad officers and ambulances were immediately rushed to the inn where, at .the foot of a flight of wooden steps leading from the low-roofed cellar from behind the bar counter, they found Robert Richards lying dead. At the far end of the cellar along a passage-way' lined with barrels, a, safe built into the wall gaped open. Week-end. takings, amounting to about £60 in notes and coin, were strewn about the floor. After the body had been removed fingerprint and photographic expertis examined the for several hours. They 'found that the safe had been "cracked" apparently with the aid of a powerful explosive known as samsonite. They also found around the steel walls of the safe traces of potted meat, similar to that sold in a bar of the inn, which had beeu used seemingly in an attempt to deaden the noise.