POLICE SEARCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 193, 17 August 1939, Page 24

POLICE SEARCH.

GIRLS' ASSAILANT.

REMARKABLE SCENES.

AFRAID TO LEAVE HOMES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 12. At Fairfield, wliieh is on the outskirts of Sydney on the western side, the remarkable -spectacle was witnessed this week of a constable watching at the railway station, while mothers met daughters, and brothers their sisters, arriving off trains between 5.30 and 7 p.m. to see them safely home. The reason for this extraordinary state of affairs, ie an unknown man, believed to be armed, who this week lias twice assaulted girls on their way home. It is believed that he waits on the overhead passenger bridge above the railway at Fairfield Station, watches the girls coming off the train, selects a pretty one and follows her.

The first girl who was .assaulted this week said she was walking to her home about a mile from the station and. when pacing through a sparsely-settled area, saw a man in the middle of the road ahead of her. At a place where the scrub came close to the road he turned around and stopped her. He was wearing coloured glasses and had a handkerchief over the lower part of his face. He threatened her with something which she took for a revolver, and made her walk back with him along the road and up a narrow lane until they were well away from any houses. The girl alleged that he then made her take off her "clothes, but after elie had done eo suddenly- turned and made off.

Another girl told the ]>olice a somewhat similar story as to the way in which a man accosted her. She said that after making her walk into the scrub he tied her wrists behind her back with a cord and then walked up and down declaiming like an actor. He said he had seen and admired her when she was singinjj in the choir and that he, too, had sniifi in it. The girl said that while he was "ranting about religion" she managed to tear away a handkerchief with which he had gagged her and screamed out. He then untied her wrists and fled.

There are only two constables at Fairfield and there is no police station. The constables' base is a call-box in the main street, and the nearest police is at Smithfield two miles away. City detectives have been assigned to try and get the man, but in the meantime, as one Fairfield resident said, the terrified girls of Fairfield are prisoners at home" after dark and do not feel safe until they have got home.