‘Robbers wore Klan masks’

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 10

‘Robbers wore Klan masks’

Two men alleged to have robbed a dairy shop proprietor of $l2O when carrying .303 and .22 rifles, and wearing Ku Klux Klan-type masks with eye holes, were yesterday committed to the High Court for trial on several charges.

The defendants were Barry John Wiki, aged 27 (Mr S. C. Barker) and RexDonald Hitchcox, aged 30 (Mr J. Halls), both unemployed. They were jointly charged with robbing a Centaurus Road dairy shop proprietor of $l2O when armed with rifles, and of conspiring with each other to commit robbery.

Wiki was also charged with unlawfully taking a car valued at $340, belonging to Margaret Hill, on March 6. They pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury oh the charges. The conspiracy charge related to the defendants and allegedly planning to rob the Woolston T.A.8., which they were said to have been driving to, before deciding to try elsewhere, and eventually stopping at the dairy. After hearing depositions of evidence and statements from prosecution witnesses, Messrs M. B. Hayes and V. C. Empson, Justices of the Peace, held there was sufficient evidence to commit the two for trial on all charges.

The two were remanded in custody pending their trial.

Counsel for both defendants reserved their defence. Detective Sergeant J. A. Ell prosecuted. The dairy proprietor, Frances Colleen Thompson, said in evidence that she and her son were restocking shelves at 9 p.m. on March 7 when she saw a man appear, clothed from head to toe. He had a mask over his head, with eye holes cut in it, like a Ku Klux Klan mask but not so pointed. He carried a rifle with something draped over it so that only the barrel and a portion of woodwork showed. A second man. similarly dressed and with a Ku Klux Klan-type of mask, appeared about this time. The first man told Mrs Thompson that if she did not do what she was told he would kill her. The second man grabbed her son and made him lie on the floor, and put the rifle to his head. About this time her daughter appeared at the outside door, took one look at what was going on, screamed, and took off. The two men then started getting all flustered, and the man holding Mrs Thompson told his companion to get the money. The first man pushed her and said if she did not go and get her daughter he would shoot her, and her son, and threatened to shoot everybody.

The contents of two mis were then emptied into a bag: carried by one of the men. Mrs Thompson said she. was pushed out the door and’ was told to get into a car parked along the road. > She grabbed the barrel of the rifle pointed at her bv. the man behind her, to twist it aside, and told the man she' was not getting in, "not on your nelly.” The driver told him to leave her alone, and she, jumped out of the way and* ran back towards the shop as the car left. She could not recognise the* two defendants as being the., two assailants in the shop. Other evidence was given of the .303 rifle being foundin a park near the dairy soon'' after the alleged ro'bberv. and the .22 rifle being found; in a car parked on Ramahana Road the next morning. Both weapons were ! wrapped in garments; the weapons had no bolts. Colleen Shirley Benson, a housewife, gave'evidence of Wiki and Hitchcox calling at., her home and of Wiki asking for some rope, and talking., about robbing a T.A.B. and’ needing it to tie somebody UP- ' 2 She understood that Hitch-' cox was to be the driver for Wiki when they robbed the 2 T.A:B. The next morning Wiki . called and said how they had " got away with holding up a dairy. .