Armed robber gets $27,000

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 6

Armed robber gets $27,000

PA Auckland A Railways Department staff officer working as a relief teller was robbed of $27,000 yesterday in an armed hold-up at the Auck-, land railway station.

Mr K. Trebilcock, aged 22, was acting as section officer in charge' of receiving money from offices at the station when he was robbed at gunpoint at 11.25 a.m.

The man heading the police inquiry, Detective Inspector' W. H. Shanks, of Auckland, said that Mr Trebilcock was on his own in an office at the station. Answering a telephone call, he returned to the front of the office to be confronted by a masked man at the counter.

With a single-barrel shotgun pointed at him, Mr Trebilcock was ordered to lie on the floor while the armed man — and later an accomplice — crawled through a hole left by a

slide window being opened. The robbers made Mr Trebilcock crawl out of the room and down a corridor to the strongroom. He was locked in the strongroom as the two fled with two leather bags filled with money.

The bags held $12,000 in cash and $15,000 in cheques.

Twenty minutes later an off-duty Railways employee, Mrs Pauline Murray, who went into the office to collect some tickets heard muffled cries coming from the strongroom.

The alarm was raised; and within minutes police cars arrived and Mr T.rebilco,ck was released.