Elderly woman cuts free after robbery

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 1

Elderly woman cuts free after robbery

An elderly woman who was badly beaten and robbed by an armed intruder in her Fendalton home early yesterday morning marvelled later at how she managed to cut herself and her husband free from the tape used to bind them.

“It was an amazing feat — I don’t know how I did it,” said a tired and shaken Mrs Ada Stevenson, aged 81, at her home in Harakeke Street yesterday afternoon.

At 2 a.m. yesterday a man, in a balaclava and gloves and armed with a pistol and a knife, broke into the house by removing a lounge window, the police said.

He bashed Mrs Stevenson about the face and bound

her up. Her husband, Herbert, aged 79, and a partial invalid, was also bound up. The police are looking for a European man, aged between 25 and 30. They believe an anonymous telephone call about the burglary at 2.30 a.m. could have been from the man they are seeking.

For Mrs Stevenson, the nightmare began when she was asleep in a chair in the lounge. She woke to find a torch shining in her face. “She must have struggled, so the burglar punched her in the face,” said Detective Sergeant R. Hardie. Mrs Stevenson suffered a suspected broken nose and other injuries to the head. The man began searching for money in one of the

bedrooms where Mr Stevenson, founder of the Stevenson’s pies company, was asleep. He did not hear the intruder as his hearing aid had been taken out for the night.

The man left the bedroom and returned to Mrs Stevenson, demanding to know where she kept her money. “I told him where my purse was, and where we kept other money. There was not much around, so he asked me where the safe was,” she said.

“I told him there was none. We don’t have any heed for a safe — the bank is the best place for money.

“He told me that if he found a safe in the house he would have to come back and shoot me. He said he

really meant it.” He also pulled Mrs Stevenson’s diamond rings off her finger.

Mr Stevenson woke to the sound of his wife crying. When he went into the dining room, he found the man pointing a gun at her. The burglar then bound Mr Stevenson as well, went through the house again, then left. “He bound Father (Mr Stevenson) with his feet beside each other, but mine were crossed,” said Mrs Stevenson.

“I pulled myself up on the servery ledge in the dining room. I tried to stand up, but went for six. Luckily I fell into the kitchen doorway, so I managed to work my way across the kitchen on my bottom. I got a sharp knife from the drawer, then cut my feet free and then cut Father free as well.”

Mrs Stevenson then went outside on to the patio and screamed for help. The next-door neighbour, Mr J. A. Clarkson, woke up to the sound of her screams. When he looked out of the window, he saw Mrs Stevenson standing in her dressing gown. “What’s the matter?” he called out. “We’ve been bashed up,” she said. He asked if she needed medical help, but she walked back inside. He called the police and, later, after talking to the Stevensons, called an ambulance.

“Thank goodness they heard me,” said Mrs Stevenson. “There’s a river on the

other side and I know the people over the road would not have heard me. I could not have made it to the front door, and the telephone had been disconnected by the burglar.” Detective Sergeant Hardie said yesterday that police dogs had failed to track the intruder from the house. A man acting suspiciously had been seen in the area the morning before the incident.

The anonymous telephone call had been taped, and he said he would like the caller to get in touch with the police as soon as possible. “He can contact me anonymously if possible — I would be prepared to talk to him under any circumstances,” said Detective Sergeant Hardie. The tape might be released to radio stations later today, but the police want to make inquiries about it first.

Mrs Stevenson was taken to hospital after the incident, but refused to stay there the night. “You wouldn’t get me to spend the night in a hospital,” she said. It had been thought she might have to have skin grafts on her legs where the tape tore away the skin, but doctors thought this would heal by itself. Hours later, the elderly couple found their Pekinese dog, Donny, in a walk-in wardrobe.

“The burglar must have shut. him in there, because the dog would have followed him all round the house otherwise,” Mrs Stevenson said.