Armed man arrested after chase

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 1

Armed man arrested after chase

(From Our Own Reporter;

GREYMOUTH, December 8.

A man armed with a savvn-off shotgun and a pistol was apprehended near Murchison today after a chase from Ngakawau involving police from Westport, Reefton, Nelson, Greymouth and Christchurch.

The man had taken a| 17-month-old child from a house at Ngakawau.

He was stopped at a roadblock set up by Constable G. Howard, of Murchison, at the Matakitaki bridge, and after a brief discussion with the police he gave himself up. The child was not harmed.

The shotgun was found to be loaded. The man had visited a woman in Ngakawau after coming from Blenheim in a car with three other men.

Constable L. Maloney, of Granity, was called to the house, and soon after his arrival the man demanded the baby. He escaped with the child after threatening

I the constable with the shotgun. j The Westport police were called, and Seniorj Sergeant P. Peoples, who intercepted the man, was also ' threatened with the gun. The man escaped in a car. ' The three other men with whom the man had travelled from Blenheim were also in the car. but they left it when I accosted by the police near Murchison. II One party from the I Christchurch armed offenders J squad went by road through I the Lewis Pass, and another 'I flew by helicopter through the Buller Gorge. Three carloads of police, i led by Chief Inspector T. V. Thomson and SeniorSergeant J. A. C. Wright left Greymouth for the area. Another squad was sent by road from Nelson. The man was taken to Greymouth, where he will appear in the Magistrate’s Court today.