Robberies repeated in hold-up spate

Press, 15 July 1983, Page 1

Robberies repeated in hold-up spate

Armed robbers struck at two places for the second time yesterday as the spate of hold-ups continues in Christchurch.

The Rutland Street Dairy was robbed for the second time in two days by the same person, and robbers armed with a shotgun unsuccesfully tried to hold up the Opawa Post Office.

This is the second time in less than a month that the suburban post office has been held up.

In the last three weeks weapons or violence have been used in 11 robberies in Christchurch.

When Ruth Brooking saw the youth who had robbed her on Wednesday walk into the Rutland Street Dairy again yesterday morning she thought, “Oh no, not him again.” This time the youth had his balaclava pulled down to cover his face, but Miss Brooking, aged 17, recognised him by his voice and his clothes. About 11.20 a.m. on l Wednesday the youth had, walked into the dairy and with his right hand under his jacket to make it look as though he was holding a gun, had robbed Miss Brooking of the till contents of about $7O.

The youth, aged about 19, returned at 9.20 a.m. yesterday.

“You didn’t give me enough money yesterday, 1 want some more,” the youth told her. “When he asked for the money this time I said, ‘No, I am not giving you any more’,” Miss Brooking said yesterday. “Then he just went ‘bam,’ and hit me on the side of the head with his fist.

“He said, ‘l’ve got a gun,’ and I said, ‘Sure, that’s what you said yesterday but you just had a finger under your jersey.’ “But then he nulled a gun

out. It might have been a replica or something like that, but it looked real enough to me. “He said, ‘You had better give us the money. I don’t want to use the gun,’ so I opened up the till and gave him what was there.” One hundred dollars was taken in the robbery. As on Wednesday, the robber headed north along Rutland Street after leaving the dairy. The youth'is described as a European, aged about 19, 178 cm tall (sft Ilin), with black, wavy collar-length hair and a scar near his

right eye. On Wednesday he wore a green woollen hat, a navy-blue windbreaker with a mandarin-type collar and a white zip, a brown V-neck jersey and beige trousers. For yesterday’s hold-up he wore the same clothes except for blue jeans. When a post office employee arrived at the Opawa office at 8 a.m. yesterday two men wearing balaclavas and blue overalls forced their way into the building as the door was being unlocked.

Armed with a shotgun, the two men forced the employee to open the strongroom door, but the robbers fled when the alarm went off. The men drove off in a 1969 grey Ford Cortina with a black vinyl roof, registration No. DL9443. The car was stolen from the Town Hall car-park between 9.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday and was recovered in Smith Street, near Linwood Avenue, where it had been abandoned after the robbery.

One of the robbers was described as a male European, aged about 20, 173 cm tall (sft Bin), with fair hair, dark eyes, bushy eyebrows and of medium build. The other is a male, possibly dark skinned, 173 cm tall (sft Bin), of medium build with dark close-cropped hair.

The head of the Christchurch police district, Deputy Assistant Commissioner G. E. Twentyman, said that the upsurge in armed offending was of great concern.

“Crime, in general, is increasing all the time, and it is the number of young offenders that is worrying. Most offenders are under the age of 23 and last weekend we apprehended some

burglars as young as 13 and 14. “Robbery is a serious crime and intensively investigated, and the clearance rate is fairly high. I am ( confident we will soon catch the person responsible for the Rutland Street Dairy robberies,” he said. Mr Twentyman said that with present staff numbers it is always a question of what priority is put on policing and investigating. “With more men we could spend more time policing,” he said.

The Deputy-Chief Postmaster, Mr J. M. Kinraid, said that the fact that yesterday’s hold-up was the sixth of a Christchurch post office in the last 18 months was worrying. “The safety of our staff and security is of prime concern but we can’t just close all the suburban branches.

“It is not an easy problem to solve and there is a limit to what we can do. We are always trying to improve the situation,” he said. One possible remedy would be to move some of the suburban post offices into shopping malls, where there were plenty of people about, Mr Kinraid said.