WOMAN ATTACKED IN AUCKLAND

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

WOMAN ATTACKED IN AUCKLAND

(New Zealand Press Association)

A 74-year-old Remuera woman staved off unconsciousness this morning as a teen-age girl attacked her with a soft-drink bottle.

AUCKLAND, February 6.

Mrs Hinemoa Shayle Simmonds, of 22 Victoria Avenue, said later that the girl struck her three or four times over the head with the bottle, Suffering from scalp Injuries, Mrs Simmonds was taken to Auckland Hospital, treated and discharged. Mrs Simmonds described how she opened her back door shortly after 9 a.m. to find

a girl there. Another girl was nearby. Mrs Simmonds said: “She came in and asked me to ring a taxi. She threw something over my head. I thought It was stockinet. “I picked up a tin of paint and threw it at a door. The other girl ran outside. “I made a frantic struggle with the stockinet. I think I gave her a whack on the head. “She hit me over and over again. I got her hair and pulled It. “I thought if I lost consciousness it would be awful. “I found the garden clippers and I think I got these and showed them to her,” said Mrs Simmonds. “She said: ‘Let me go and I will go.’ I said if she went to the door I would let her go.” “A Bit Dazed” “When she left I rang the police. I was a bit dazed. “I went outside and my neighbour was outside. I had blood running down my neck.” Mrs Simmonds said the floor and walls near the back door were covered in blood. A taxi-driver, Mrs P. Roberts, said two girls aged about 15 got into her taxi about 9.20 a.m. in Orakei Road. They asked to be taken to Herne Bay Road. Mrs Roberts said: “They were rough and dirty and their hair had not been combed.

“They hopped in my car and never said anything all the way until the operator started broadcasting a description and asked if two girls had been picked up in the Remuera area. Started Talking “When the girls heard this they started talkidg 20 to the dozen. They tried to drown it out. “They had no shoes and

socks. They were dirty and fitted the description. “I pretended I was not taking any notice. I thought that if I recognised them they might play up. “I thought about taking them into the Ponsonby police station but then I thought it was good enough to take them home.” Mrs Roberts said that after the girls got out in Herne Bay Road they ran through a gateway and did not return. Mrs Roberts kept a watch for them until police with dogs arrived. Police Search Although the police searched the Herne Bay area the girls could not be found. Chief Inspector W. J. Robertson, of the Newmarket police, said a bag containing jewellery was found outside Mrs Simmonds’s house. Police are investigating.