YOUNG CAT BURGLAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 106, 6 May 1943, Page 4

YOUNG CAT BURGLAR

BROKE INTO BEDROOMS

SURPRISED BANK MANAGER (0.C.) SYDNEY, May 4. A detective stated in Court that Eric Raymond Miller, aged 17, was already unhappily a noted cat burglar and had no nerves. Before he took to crime he was a shop assistant. Miller was sentenced to 4£years' gaol on six charges of housebreaking. The detective said he wore rubber-soled boots and rubber gloves on his "jobs" and carried a jemmy. He specialised in breaking into houses at night while the occupants were asleep, gaining entrance by prising open windows. When he broke into the'Homebush branch of the Commonwealth Bank, he walked into a bedroom where the manager and his wife were asleep. The manager awoke. Miller decamped with his trousers. The manager fired a shot and missed Miller by inches. Miller went round the street, broke into another house and there searched the trousers he had taken. The total value of property stolen was £270, of which the police had recovered £125. The remainder had been spent by Miller gambling, , drinking, going to theatres, hiring taxis, and "having a good time." Mr. J. J. Kinkead (for Miller) suggested that in view of the urgent need of manpower, the judge should release Miller if he volunteered for army service. "These people make marvellous soldiers In tne front line," he said.

The Judge: "When you get to the front line they do, hut you've got to get them there first."