REMUERA STATION BURGLARISED

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 237, 21 June 1926, Page 7

REMUERA STATION BURGLARISED

HEAVY EXPLOSIVES USED By TEi.EGi.xru. It' Auckland, June 20. Blowing off the door of- a safe with a charge of gelignite, a burglar, who entered the booking office of the Remuera railway station early on Saturday morning, removed from the premise's the drawers of the safe and their contents, cheques and cash totalling £4O, of which £lB was in cash. The amount of explosive used must have been large as the door of the safe was badly mutilated, and the whole of the insulation was found next morning detached from the framework, and the drawers of the safe were afterwards found under a bridge about fifty yards ‘from the station, but the burglar left none of the contents, though these mainly comprised cheques, payment of which has been stopped, from timber companies. The remainder of the money in notes and silver consisted chieflv of wages for surfacemen and the station petty cash. Two residents in houses at the back of the station, recoilected having heard the sound of an explosion at about two o’clock on Saturday morning, which they, attributed to tlie noise of a puncture in a motor tyre. There is no direct substantiation of a theory at first held, and suggested bv the extent of the explosion, that’two charges were used in bursting open the safe The quantity that must have been, applied to effect the damage with one charge has leu investigators to think that the handiwork was that of an amateur. Circumstances helped in the success of the crime. With railway lines on either side, and the nearest residences some distance away, the station is comparativelv isolated and quite deserted for a good part of the night. lhe staff left at 10 o’clock on Friday night, and there was no one on duty until 6 the following morning. When Mr. Frank Golland, porter, who came on duty at that hour on Saturday, arrived at the station, lie found two lower panes of the booking office window broken The holes were about a foot long, and had obviously been used by tlie intruder to gain access to the catch. The window had been pushed well up, allowing plenty of space to enter the room. Another indication of the force of the explosion was'that the window was firmly jammed. Evidently an unsuccessful attempt had been made to enter the. station from a window at the rear of the building. This was also found with two panes similarly smashed.