POLICE CLOSING IN ON SOHO GUNMEN-ROBBERS

Evening Star, Issue 26103, 17 May 1947, Page 7

POLICE CLOSING IN ON SOHO GUNMEN-ROBBERS

(Rec. 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 16. The police detained a man they have wanted to interview in connection with the killing of Alex, de Antiquis, at Soho. 'Doris Hart, whose photograph was widely published to-day as the woman believed to be accompanying the men the police wanted to interview, walked into a Yorkshire police station this morning. She said she saw the photographs in newspapers and went to the police of her own accord and made a statement. She was surprised to find that the police wanted to interview her. Following the detention of the man, and with the “ very valuable ” information given by Doris Hart, the police believe that they will shortly find another of the two men wanted in connection with the armed raid on a Soho jeweller’s shop on April 29. ’ Doris Hart made a full statement about her movements, and the police have other important new infbrmation. A retired policeman recognised tha , man detained to-day from the description that Scotland. Yard circulated. John Morris, formerly a metropolitan police sergeant, was driving along Plumstead Common road when he saw the man. He stopped and engaged him. in conversation unt.il a uniformed policeman came along on a bicycle. They persuaded the man to come to the police station; where he was detained pending an identification parade tomorrow. The police believe that they are near the end of one of the most intensive investigations ever carried out. The officers in charge of the case have been working for 17 days with very brief breaks for food and sleep. [The police began on April 29 the year’s biggest man hunt for three gunmen who shot and killed a motor cyclist who intercepted their attempt to rob a jeweller’s shop in Central London, and for another gunman who fired four shots at a policeman who found him lurking in the doorway of a AVest End gown shop. The motor cyclist,, who wab later identified as Alexander de Antiquis, was shot when he slewed his machine across the path of the waiting car of masked gunmen as they dashed from the jewellers. The gunmen, unable to use .the car, escaped by running along Tottenham Court road, and disappeared among the crowds. People yelling “ stop thief ” chased the gunmen, who clubbed the jeweller’s shop manager when he resisted them. Mr Antiquis wasjjmarried and leaves six children. Scotland Yard, in a reconstruction of the hold-up, says that about £1,450 worth of jewels were stolen.]