WOMAN SANDBAGGED

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 July 1931, Page 10

WOMAN SANDBAGGED

AUCKLAND SUBURB OUTRAGE

[special to “star.”]

AUCKLAND, July 8.

A violent attack on Mrs H. F. Butler, of 11 Arney Crescent, Remuera. was made by an unidentified man. who went to the back door on Saturday evening. Mrs Butler was struck on the head with an object, believed to have been a sandbag, and colllapsed. The circumstances of the assault and the nature of the injuries closely resemble the attack upon, and the injuries suffered by, Miss Helga Bierre, in a house in Warrington Road, in the same locality on June 21. When approached, last night, for confirmation of his wife’s experience, Mr. Butler opened the door, with a raised stick in his hand. “We have had one ugly experience here, and we are not having another,” he said. “I prefer to hit first, and ask questions afterwards.”

POLICE SCEPTICAL.

AUCKLAND, July 8.

Commenting on the published report, the police officials view with scepticism the sandbagging of a woman on Sunday evening. Detectives had made enquiries, and are of the opinion that the woman received the injury by a fall at the back door, and had not been sandbagged. Inspector J. W. Hollis states there has not been a sandbagging case in Auckland for thirty years. “There’s not a tittle of evidence that sandbags were used in this or any other case reported,” he said. Investigation of recent cases showed that several had been due to hysteria. “Only a few weeks ago a young Epsom woman alleged that her house had been ransacked, but afterwards confessed that she was responsible herself for the disorder."