Police seek public help

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 2

Police seek public help

Christchurch detectives have called for help from the public to trace the escape route of two robbers who held up the Woolworths supermarket in Bishopdale at gunpoint on Thursday. The man heading the investigation, Detective Senior-Sergeant Mike White, said that the police needed to determine what happened after the hold-up. The masked robbers fled with more than $2lOO in a big metal cashbox after holding five staff at the point of a sawn-off doublebarrel shotgun. Detectives believe the robbers changed their clothes and dumped the

shotgun and cashbox somewhere in Christchurch between 1.17 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Thursday. They travelled in a dark blue 1985 Mitsubishi Mirage, registration number LY7446. After the robbery the car was driven across a grass verge from the supermarket car-park to Farrington Avenue. It then went towards Harewood Road, negotiated the roundabout, and disappeared down Highsted Road. The car was next seen in Churchill Street, off the eastern end of Bealey Avenue, about 2 p.m. It was recovered the next day in Opawa.

Detective Senior-Sergeant White said that the robbers probably attracted attention as they carried the heavy cash box to the get-away car. The cashbox held big quantities of $2 and $1 notes and 50c and 20c pieces. The rest of the money was in small change. The police would like to hear about anyone spending; big amounts of change anc $1 and $2 notes. Detectives on the case have arrested a man and charged him with aggravated robbery, and a second man has been charged with unlawfully possessing . a sawn-off shotgun.