WIDOW TIED UP AFTER ATTACK

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31597, 7 February 1968, Page 1

WIDOW TIED UP AFTER ATTACK

Intruder Also Sets Fire To House

A 61-year-old widow was attacked by a man as she entered the back door of her home in Sydenham late yesterday afternoon, tied up, and shut in a cupboard. The intruder then lit fires in three rooms.

The widow, Mrs Adeline Alma Bartie, of 259 Colombo Street, heard the man come back into the bedroom where she was shut in the wardrobe, and called out to him to open the wardrobe door as she was suffocating.

The man opened the door, and Mrs Bartie saw that the bedroom was on fire. She managed to crawl to the dressing table, and freed herself by cutting the cord round her feet and wrists with a pair of scissors. She cut her fingers while struggling to free herself.

Mrs Bartie staggered from the smoke-filled bedroom and collapsed momentarily on the lawn outside the front door. She then went to the premises of Kearns Motors, Ltd, next door, where Mr L. J. Keatley telephoned the police. The Christchurch Fire Brigade was telephoned at 5.32 p.m. In the meantime patrons at the Sandridge Hotel across the road had noticed smoke pouring from Mrs Bartle’s house. About a dozen men got a hose from the rear of the house and by the time firemen had arrived had almost extinguished the fire in the bedroom where Mrs Bartie had been shut in the wardrobe. .

In Hospital A fireman saw Mrs Bartie eollapsed on the lawn just inside the gate to her home, and a St John ambulance was called. Mrs Bartie was treated at the Christchurch Hospital for a minor head injury and

bruises on the face and jaw, and discharged. Mrs Bartie made a statement to detectives at the Christchurch Central Police Station and was being taken back to her house in a patrol car when she began vomiting. Detective Sergeant T. Watkins took her back to the hospital. She was later admitted to the Princess Margaret Hospital, where her condition last night was reported to be satisfactory. Detective Inspector M. T. Churches and nine detectives and four uniformed men began investigations at the house as soon as the firemen had put out the other fires; one in the second bedroom and the other in the diningroom of the five-roomed, wooden bungalow.

Furniture Damaged The worst damage was caused in the bedroom where Mrs Bartie had been shut in the wardrobe. Several pieces of furniture in the three rooms were damaged by fire, and smoke caused slight damage to -every room in the house. Police dogs failed to. get any scent to track the intruder from the property. Detective Inspector Churches said there were signs that the house had been searched.. Mrs Bartle, a short, slighflybuilt woman, returned home from her work in a factory shortly before 5. p.m. She lives alone. She'entered the back door and was going into the kitchen when she was seized from behind. She said

that the man flung her against a wall and later punched her on the jaw. He then hit her several times about the face, and dragged her to a bed. He tied her wrists and feet with cord, carried her to the wardrobe and shut heb in, turning the catch on the door. Mrs Bartie told the police that she was very dazed and shocked, but could hear the man moving round in other rooms in the house.

Detective Inspector Churches said that the man who attacked Mrs Bartie was aged between 30 and 40, was tall, and was wearing a white shirt with dark trousers. Witness Sought The police were very anxious to get in touch with a man who had been given a demonstration run by a salesman from Sydenham Car Sales yesterday afternoon. The salesman had taken the client in a 1964 Austin Farina A4O along Colombo Street towards Cashmere. The car was driven back along Colombo Street about 5 p.m. and the car salesman had seen two men coming from the gate of Mrs Bartle's house and a third man running across the road in front of the car. “We are anxious for the client considering buying the car to get in touch with the

C. 1.8. because he may have seen more of what happened at 259 Colombo Street than the salesman did, as the salesman was driving,” Detective Inspector Churches said. The photograph below shows Detective Senior-Ser-geant B. L S. Kimber (left) and Detective Sergeant B. J. Preston outside Mrs Bartle’s house. Fire-dam-aged household goods are on the lawn, and the window of the bedroom where Mrs Bartie was shut in the wardrobe is behind Mr Kimber.