High-Speed Chase By Police After Burglary

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30302, 30 November 1963, Page 14

High-Speed Chase By Police After Burglary

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, November 29.

A young Helensville couple, woken by a burglar alarm, gave a car registration number to the police who chased the vehicle at high speed for nine miles before it capsized, Sergeant L. R. Woodgate, told the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland today.

Messrs F. T. McAneny and T. N. Pemberton, Js.P., presided over a preliminary hearing in which two men and a youth faced four joint charges of burglary, one joint charge of being in possession of instruments of burglary by night, and another joint charge of theft. After the hearing, Cecil Duke Te Whiu, aged 37, a welder, of Glen Innes, and the 16-year-old youth, whose name was suppressed, pleaded not guilty and were committed for trial in the Supreme Court on all charges. Ben Richard Kora, aged 40. a workman, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence, Leon Matthew Hill and his wife, Mary Ellen HiU, told the court they woke about 1.20 a.m. on November 4 and heard the burglar alarm ringing in the premises of Thomas Cohen and Sons, Ltd., where Hill worked. They saw two men walking along the footpath and pass under a street light. One of them was carrying a bag or sack, “containing something.’’ A little later a car parked outside their house started and drove away. Hill said he got a “fair idea” of the number plate of the car. He notified the police. Bottles On Road A detective constable. Stanley Edward James Taylor, said he was in a patrol car with another constable when they were asked to keep a look out for the car. The car passed them travelling at high speed. They gave chase, closed with the car, pulled alongside and shouted to the driver, who he alleged was Te Whiu, telling him to stop. Taylor said Te Whiu veered the car toward the police vehicle in what seemed to be an attempt to force it off the road. The police continued to follow the car. At a turn-off. it swerved, slewing across the road in loose metal. Three bottles were dropped on the road in front of the police car. The fleeing car failed to negotiate a bend, and capsized. Two men climbed from the car and made off into scrub. Taylor said he drew out his pistol and fired a shot into the air. Kor.. then came back. Te Whiu was located by a police dog, Duke, after he had made his way through scrub, fern trees, streams, through paddocks of cattle and over numerous fences. The youth who tried to escape from the vehicle through a window collapsed over the car and appeared to be seriously injured. An

ambulance was called and he was taken to Auckland Hospital. Explosives in Car Taylor said he later found in and around the car, 87 detonators, five sticks of gelignite, an electric cyclelamp battery, gloves, socks, a hacksaw, a screwdriver, a keyhole saw, a jemmy, a table knife and a torch, all of which were instruments used in burglary. He also found eight packets of cigarettes, two packets of cigars, two bottles of whisky, five smashed bottles with the seals intact, an orphans collection box containing 14s 2jd, £72 7s 7d in notes and silver, and labels from various liquor bottles. A detective-sergeant, Brian Walter James, said the youth

told him later that it was his father’s car the three had used. He had not known they were going to Helensville, but he knew they were “going to do a job” somewhere. The youth said he had been asleep in the car most of the time and the other two men came back and forth from the car. When they finally drove oft, he went back to sleep and could not remember anything until after the smash. ’ James said Kora told him he had stolen the detonators and gelignite from a quarry in Mount Wellington. He had then driven to Helensville and committed the offences. Kora had said the other two accused had been asleep in the car all the time.