Police Know Owner Of Circus Yard Hoard

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29153, 14 March 1960, Page 11

Police Know Owner Of Circus Yard Hoard

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 13. Sydney detectives say they have found the owner of the £40,000 “treasure chest” from which they believe schoolboys have been drawing money for several months. The detectives believe the money has been the cache of a hoarder for many years. A senior police officer said yesterday: “We are satisfied none of the money has come from an illegal source and we expect to interview its owner in due course.”

More than £2OOO, in New Zealand £1 notes, was found in the cache, which has been confiscated by police. Most of the money was found on Monday in a battered tea chest in an old circus caravan at a yard in Regatta road, Fivedock. The yard is usually used by Bullen Brothers’ circus, which is now touring New Zealand. Detectives believe that boys have been drawing money from the hoard since November. On Monday night detectives confiscated the money, mainly £lO and £5 notes. Since then they have uncovered an amazing story of how the boys handled some of the money. Some of them carried stacks of notes to school in their bags. One boy had £lOOO in a box under his bed.

Another boy lined the inside of his school Case in a green and blue checker-board pattern with £1 and £5 notes. The boy’s parents had to soak the case in water to remove the notes intact.

A team of detectives, who already have confiscated £3OOO from boys, believe more loot may be hidden > ,

A second team is questioning a uniformed constable and detectives at a suburban police station. This team is investigating allegations by Mr J. Bell, of suburban Beecroft. Mr Bell claims that in Novem-

ber, when he lived at Concord, he told police his son John had taken money from a circus caravan. Mr Bell says that he surrendered to police a sum of money “less than £5O"

In a radio-telephone interview from Greymouth yesterday, Mr Stafford Bullen, manager of Bullen Brothers’ circus, said: “The cheque the police have found belongs to the circus. But it has nothing to do with anything else. “It is invalid—it is no good." Mr Bullen said. “We don’t know anything about the money other than what 1 have stated.” Mr Bullen said his mother, Mrs Lilian Ethel Bullen, who owned the circus, has claimed the £40,000, on the ground that it had been found on her property. He. said that he and his mother probably would return to Sydney at the end of April after the New Zealand tour A friend of the Bullens, Mr Gordon Harrington, said treasurehunters had caused about £lOOO damage to equipment stored in the circus yard. He said fhe Bullens had left him in charge of £50.000 worth of trucks, caravans and circus equipment there. Treasure-hunters and vandals had torn or smashed the doors and windows on most of the 12 trucks and caravans in the yard Thieves had stolen circus equipment, including saddles and ring whips, and “milked” diesel oil from fuel tanks.