“Hermit Burglar" Evasive

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 1

“Hermit Burglar" Evasive

Spencerville’s “hermit burglar”—a masterly bushman, in local residents’ eyes—yesterday evaded 350 policemen, soldiers and airmen making one of the. largest searches ever mounted in Canterbury.

The man is wanted for questioning about burglaries in the area in the last three weeks.

"The worrying thing for us is that he’s still in there,” Mr A. A. Adcock, a Waimairi county councillor and manager of Spencerville Park, said last evening. “There is a vast area of scrub and swamp north of the search area, and tonight, if the man is still about, he could slip back into the area already covered.

“Local residents are very concerned and very upset The womenfolk are very upset Husbands are not leaving their homes at night any more than is absolutely necessary.” Mr Adcock said some local people claimed that a man had been living out in the plantation area for about two years, but he definitely knew that a man had been camping out there since the burg-

laries began in Beyders road three weeks ago. “He knows what he’s doing in the bush. He’s very calculating, shrewd, and very cunning.” Mr Adcock said he had been told of one bivouac over which a person could have walked without seeing it It was set down among tree roots, natural cover was used to conceal it and it had peepholes.

Mr Adcock said he was concerned that some innocent person could be injured as a result of precautions local residents were taking.

"Each householder is taking his own precautions,” said Mr Adcock, who owns a large Alsatian. “Very possibly an innocent person could be injured."

Chief Inspector B. Kelly said that no sighting had been made during the search, which covered 7680 acres—plantations, scrub up to Bft high, gorse, and sandhills, some 100 ft high. The search, however, had uncovered a number of bivouacs, one only three days old, and a quantity of stolen property. “We have no doubt that somebody has been living out in the plantation. It is doubtful that the burglaries at Spencerville were committed by somebody who had come out from Christchurch.

“We are going to continue inquiries, and a police watch will be maintained in the area.”

A briefing for the searchers was held at the Christchurch Central Police Station at 5 a.m., and by 6 a.m. a cordon of policemen had been thrown round an area four miles by three miles. At 8 a m. a line of soldiers and airmen with more policemen and seven police dogs, began a sweep which moved from one end of the Bottle Lake plantation up through Spencer Park and Spencerville.

. As the line of searchers moved through the area a light plane from the Canter-

bury Aero Club, with SeniorSergeant O. D. Wilkes and Detective Senior-Sergeant B. L S. Kimber as observers, moved back and forth above them.

The sweep was completed at 3.55 p.m. Of the 350 searchers 120 were policemen, and 230 soldiers and airmen. The soldiers were under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. Brooke and the airmen were under the command of Squadron Leader C. Scott. Chief Superintendent G. S. Austing, officer in charge of the Christchurch police district, expressed his thanks to the soldiers and airmen for their assistance.