ACROBAT ROOF BURGLAR

Evening Star, Issue 20779, 29 April 1931, Page 12

ACROBAT ROOF BURGLAR

PLANK USED AS BRIDGE LOFTY FOURTEEN-FOOT GAP. Who is the skylight burglar, the daring acrobatic thief who added to a senes of clever West End raids by entering a Jeweller’s shop in St. Martin’s Lane, Trafalgar Square, and getting away with £3,000 worth of valuables, was the question that was recently being asked in London. The circumstances suggest that the robbery was tho work of several men, headed by one of very small stature. They first climbed an iron fire escape to the roof of the Coliseum Theatre and reached a spot opposite the premises of a firm of Jewellers and pawnbrokers. There a 14ft gap between the two roofs was bridged with a plank, and risking a fall of 40ft they crossed the foot-wide plank to the jeweller’s roof. _ The thieves smashed a glass sky<light, cut with a hacksaw through a grille of -2in steel, and entered the top floor. They then made their way down to an empty room over the shop. A hole was cut in the floor large enough for a boy or a very small man to drop to the floor of the show rooms. Only thin steel bars ’ outside the shop windows now hid the thief from pas-sers-by, and it is certain that he could not have made use of any light. In spite of this, everything of value in tho window facing St. Martin’s Lane was removed. Watches, clocks, rings, cigarette cases, and other articles, all of gold, were handed by the man to his companions in the i-oorii < above, and the thieves then made their escape. Although tho raid must have lasted from two to three hours, no one saw the thieves enter or leave the building. Several residents in the street heard them at work, but as alterations arc being made to the stage of the Coliseum the noise was thought to bo that of carpenters in tho theatre. Mr Mariana, the proprietor of a restaurant near tho shop, said: ” 1 hoard a lot of banging, as though hammers and chisels were being used. I thought _at first that someone had broken into my promises, hut then I remembered that tho Coliseum stage was being altered, so I dropped off to sleep. ‘‘ It seems to me that the acrobatic thief is tho same man who has broken into my restaurant three times within tho last two years. On egch occasion tho premises wore entered with amazing skill through a tiny skylight. On the last occasion, a few months ago, the thief left an ugly-looking razor in my office, and 1 now keep a revolver handy at night.” The theory that the thieves were disguised as workmen to escape notice is being considered.