A DARING ROBBERY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 41, 16 August 1918, Page 7

A DARING ROBBERY

MAN WITH TWO SUITS

TEN YEARS FOR STEALING £4471

(ORITBB PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRI6HT.) (Received August 16, 11 a.m.) MELBOURNE, This Day. Henry Cook, found guilty of robbing Savings Bank officials, haa been sentenced to ten years' hard labour. He protested his innocence.

Cook was charged with, having, in company with another man (both being armed) robbed Erneat- Bean and James Vincent Daroy of two bags containing £4471, the property of the Government Printing Office, oh 31st May. The trial began on- 6th August. Cook, who was described as asistant secretary of the Victorian Railways Union, pleaded riot guilty. Mr. Woinarski, K.C., who conducted the prosecution, said it was alleged by the Crown that Cook, with another robber, thoroughly acquainted with the movements of certain Government officers, Bean and Darcy, waited the arrival of those officers with thousands of pounds in their possession, bailed them up with loaded revolvers and robbed them of the money they carried. It chanced that on that particular morning Bean and Darcy were delayed at the bank for 25 minutes. The robbers were up to time, and were compelled to await the arrival of their booty. This unusual circumstance gave three highly-placed officers at the Government Printing Office an opportunity to see two men loitering about, and they would ■ identify Cook as one of the two men. A man passing on a tram, too, would swear that he saw Cook there, and Darcy would in >iis evidence identify Cook, as one of the two men who robbed him. Probably owing to the unexpected delay in the arrival of Bean and Darcy, the motor cycle, with side car attached, waiting near by,-*«r use by the robbers in making their escape, got cold, and could not be promptly started. That cycle was Cook's property, and it was the smaller of the two men—the Crown said that was Cook—who tried to start it. It would be shown that the. smaller man wns wearing a grey pepper and salt suit, with grey hat and black band. One witness would swear h& was wearing two suits, one grey, the other of some dark material. This was significant, because almost. immediately after the robbery and pursuit, a grey pepper and salt coat was found in Charles-street, and the trousers and vest of the same suit, with braces attached, at the rear of the Rainbow Hotel. Accused Cook, when arrested, was wearing a dark suit, and a grey hat with black band.