CAR RAIDERS’ ROPE TRAP

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1931, Page 9

CAR RAIDERS’ ROPE TRAP

£l,OOO JEWEL HAUL. LONDON, September 6. Fastening a rope across the doorway to prevent a possible pursuit, three men who drove up in a motor-car stole jewellery worth nearly £lOOO from Messrs. Leighton, in New Bond Street, yesterday. A hammer was flung through the plate glass window, and the thieves quickly seized everything possible and then drove away. A passer-by took the number of the car used. The stolen goods consist of two diamond bracelets, a valuable diamond chain, 14in. long, and a number of smaller articles. Mr. Rann, Messrs. Leighton’s manager, had been out into the street to look at the window and had barely returned to the shop when he heard the crash of breaking glass. “Turning back,” he said later, ‘‘l found that a rope had been placed between swivel arms on my doorway and those of the ship next door, thus preventing me from getting out into the street in time to see the thieves. When I eventually got out I found the glass broken and inside the window a 141 b. hammer. Neither my assistants nor myself saw any sign of the robbers themselves. There were diamonds worth £ 5000 in the windows, and even in their hurry the thieves got away with the most valuable of the lot.”