BOLD SYDNEY BANDIT

Evening Star, Issue 20255, 16 August 1929, Page 2

BOLD SYDNEY BANDIT

. U ■ ,4. •. -J RAID OH'fcUSY GARAGE , MASKED MAM WITH GUH A desperate bandit, armed and masked and wearing rubber gloves, carried out a daring raid on, a garage at Roselle, Sydney; by night,. --""After bailing up the- manager and two assistants and rifling the cash register of £35, the man decamped. Exciting incidents then occurred; two shots were fired by the bandit, who felled the managed with a blow on the Head; He made, his escape in a motor car without lights and without a number plate, and driven by an accomplice. Detectives are convinced that the man was the robber who, on July 22, bailed up employees at a, bakery at Annandale and stole £2B in cash and cheques worth £77, The manager, Mr Henry Weale, and his two assistants, Morgan Hall and Robert Richards, were conversing m the small office of the garage at about 7.30, when they were rather amused to see a man, whom they believed to be a practical joker, appear at the open doorway. The stranger had a handkerchief tied round his face covering his features below his eyes and a slouch hat was -pulled tightly down over bis forehead. • A' revolver with a 12in barrel was .levelled steadily at them. : -V‘. “HANDS UP OR I SHOOT.” - The man, heavily built and wearing a grey suit, spoke swiftly and in a deep .voice. “Hands up or 1 shoot!” ho commenced. “ Come on, quick. Hands above your heads and into that corner ‘ . . . Faces to the wall.” ’ “Cut out the Wild West stuff,” remarked the youngest of the three, Robert Richards. “Quick now, into that corner, or, by v——; I’ll drill you; I’ll shoot,” was 'the man’s desperate reply. , “He soon made us realise that he was in earnest,” said Hall later in the night. _ “I saw his finger tremble on the trigger. That was enough. We ' backed into the corner, raised our hands above our heads, and turned . with our faces to the wall ” The menaced men had sly glances over their shoulders, and they saw the bandit change his revolver from his right hand to his left hand, still keeping it levelled at them. With his right hand, gloved so as to ■ prevent tell-tale fingerprints, he pressed one of the;’ register keys, and when the cash drawer shot out he snatched the banknotes froin the _ receptacle and stuffed them hurriedly into bis pocket. A PLUCKY PURSUIT. At this moment, just as he had com- . pleted Ms crime, a motorist drew his machine up in front of the garage. The bandit was unperturbed. “Goodnight, gentlemen,” ho said to, the three men standing in the corner, and then turned and ran away Weale, the manager, with the other two at his heels, attempted to follow, and the ■ man turned about, and, with an oath, fired a shot. The bullet smashed through the platogl&ss window above their heads. The robber then ran up. a steep street nearby, but Weale continued : the pursuit, and again the fugitive turned and" : fired. • “Take that,” he cried -hoarsely _ Weale, however, crouching Tow,' continued the pursuit, and as they .approached the.corner of Hornsey - -street and Gordon street he got close enough to attempt-to trip the robber. • Failing to accomplish this, he then ■ tried :te jump on to the man’s back. The ' fugitive turned and aimed a heavy -blow- at his pursuer, striking him on ■the side of. the head and knocking him down. "=He plunged his hand into his pocket as'if to draw the revolver and shoot the prostrate manager, but turned

again and ran to a motor car standing a few .yards/ down the street with its engine running and a door open. 1 The machine had'lpeither headlights nor taillight alight, ? and was without «, number plate. As the bandit sprang into a seat the engine was accelerated with a roar.' and the car raced into the darkness. POLICE WITHOUT CLUE. Detectives from headquarters and plain-clothesmen from the Balmain division were soon on the spot. They scoured the district in motor cars, but were unable to obtain a single, useful clue to the of the bandit. The man’s audacity was amazing. The garage, which is opposite the White Bay power station, fronts a busy thoroughfare, with motor cars, trams, and buses usually passing in procession at the time of night he selected. Customers, too, are usually numerous ac that hour, but the robber snatched a sufficient interval to succeed in his crime. The size of the revolver which he carried led to the suspicion in the first instance that it was a deadly sawn-off shotgun, but an examination of the damage caused by the bullet as it shattered the window, tore through a light wooden partition, and became embedded in a wall proved that it was a revolver of a heavy and dangerous pattern.