DAYLIGHT HOLD-UP

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 97, 21 October 1935, Page 10

DAYLIGHT HOLD-UP

MOTORIST ATTACKED

MAN STRUCK WITH IRON PIPE

£50 STOLEN

Battered over the head with a piece of iron pipe, and left unconscious on the roadside, Mr. James O'Neill, a collector foe the Wellington Gas Company, was the victim of a daring daylight robbery carried out by two men in a lonely part of the road between Lyall Bay and Houghton Bay about 11.30 a.m. on Saturday.

A bag containing £50 was taken by the two men, who stopped the motorcar Mr. O'Neill was driving, attacked him, and made off, later abandoning the car in Sutherland Road, Melrose. Mr. O'Neill was half-conscious when he was picked up by a passing- motorist. His nose was broken, and he was bleeding from wounds on the forehead and left hand. After receiving medical attention, he was able to return to his home.

Mr. O'Neill still showed signs of the determined attack which had been made upon him when he told his story to a "Post" representative today. His hand was swollen, his head was bruised, and there were scars on his forehead. Every afternoon, and on Saturday mornings, Mr. O'Neill' collects money from the gas company's suburban depots. He had reached the most lonely part of the road just past the quarry near the Lyall Bay end when a man stepped out and waved his arms. Thinking that an accident had occurred, Mr. O'Neill stopped the car. .

He was opening the door to ask what was wrong, when the man punched him in the face,- breaking his nose. The second man, who was oh the other side of the car, then started to hit Mr. O'Neill over the head with a piece of iron pipe. Mr. O'Neill kept a firm grip on the bag containing the money, but the man with the pipe said, "Let go the bag" and at the same moment struck him on, the hand. ' A few moments later he lost consciousness.

Mr. O'Neill remembers crawling up a bank on to the road where he was picked up by the motorist, but he is unable to say whether he fell or was thrown there by the two men

The hold-up was evidently carefully planned, for Mr. O'Neill follows the same route every day, and usually passes the spot where he was attacked at the same time.

Mr. O'Neill thinks that the' men must have been keeping a watch on him for a considerable time, and probably obtained information about the money that he carries each day. < Except on holidays, motorists using the road where he was attacked are few "and-far between, and on this occasion the road was completely deserted.