Robbers silence screaming girl

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 3

Robbers silence screaming girl

PA Auckland Miss Vai Bacon kept screaming for help, until she was gagged, when two masked men, with knives, robbed a Manurewa hotel about 9 a.m. yesterday. ■ Miss Bacon was cashing up the week-end takings — staff said the to’-'.l was more than $lO,OOO — at the Bell Bird Hotel, Great South Road, when the two men burst into the room, ■ and said: “We don’t want to hurt you, we just want the money. Lie face down on the floor.” “I was more cross than scared,” Miss Bacdn recalled later. “I just yelled as loud as I could. Quite often at this time of the day there are joggers running past, and I thought one of them might hear.” The two intruders forcibly silenced Miss Bacon. They tied and gagged her with tape, giving her a bleeding nose as they did so.

They also tied up the hotel’s cook before. scooping up the money and the bank bags and making offOne of the men was carrying a knife with a 25cm blade, possibly a butcher’s knife.- The other a smaller weapon, possibly a chisel. Miss Bacon was calm after the incident, and yesterday afternoon stayed on to finish the cashing up and try to determine the exact amount stolen. The two intruders ripped the telephone from the wall before escaping. The police said they brought equipment with them and obviously expected to find only one person in the room. They did not have enough tape to gag the cook. A big police team is investigating the robbery and several lines of inquiry are being followed. The police seek two men, both in their 20s.