WELL PLANNED BURGLARY

Evening Star, Issue 23092, 19 October 1938, Page 10

WELL PLANNED BURGLARY

CLEVER GANG AT WORK SHREWD MOVE TO PREVENT CAPTURE POLICE LOCKED OUT [Per United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, October 19. A gang of burglars with big ideas set out in the early hours of Monday morning on a well-planned endeavour to help themselves to a van load of military stores from tho King Edward Barracks, but, going about tho job a little too noisily, they very narrowly escaped capture by a police cordon. First, tho burglars went to J. M. Hoy wood and Co.’s garage in Sydenham, where, using a jemmy, they broke their way through the outer gates and the inner doors, and selecting a large covered van drove away. They arrived at the Montreal street entrance of the barracks at 3 a.m. They cut the padlock off the outer gate with a powerful bolt-cutter and drove the stolen van into the yard. They then shut the gate behind them. They next forced open a small door which admitted them to the main building. Here their first move was, in view of subsequent developments, a brilliant one. They padlocked on the inside the two other doors opening into the building. It seems probable that they also posted one of their number under the balcony of the caretaker’s quarters._ Along each side of the main building are the offices of the various units and store rooms packed with tinned food, rifles and ammunition, blankets and camping gear and other military equipment.- They were not sure, it seems, which store to open first, and as they moved from one door to another the caretaker, Mr L. Haslett, heard them. Hoping to give the police the opportunity of a red-handed capture, he quietly rang the watch house, and within a minute or two a dozen police had arrived. Blocking every exit, they found themselves locked out, however, by the padlocks so shrewdly used by the burglars, except at the door by which the latter entered. The burglars had taken alarm. Probably the listener under the balcony of the caretaker’s quarters had heard him ringing the Police Station and they had slipped out. Hey wood’s van was left in the yard, and the police found also burglars’ tools, two jemmies, and holt-cutter, the latter being regarded as an important clue. Nothing had been taken from tho stores.