A CLEVER RUSE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXI, Issue 9771, 31 July 1924, Page 5

A CLEVER RUSE

BANK SKILFULLY ROBBED

(Received July 30, 9.40 p.m.) MELBOURNE. July 30

By a clever ruse, the Canterbury branch of the Commercial Bank was robbed of £SOO in single and five pound notes. When he arrived in the morning the manager (Mr. Morgan) found the telephone out of order and, a few minutes later a neighbouring shopkeeper told him that lie was wanted by the head office on his shop telephone. When Mr. Morgan left to go to- the ’phone the teller (W. Ohittick) entered the bank and was confronted by an armed man, who told him not to move or he would be shot. The intruder then snatched the bank revolver from the wall and grabbed a handful of notes from a drawer. Chittick rushed for another revolver in the manager’s room and, as he secured it, the robber closed with him. Chittick fired' a shot but missed and the man replied with two shots, wounding Chittick in the foot and hand. The thief then escaped through the bank door. The robber evidently had been carefully planned, as the bank telephone wires were cut and the manager found when be went to the shop he was not wanted at the telephone, the accomplice having apparently rung him to decoy him from the bank, while the other moist have obtained entrance to the hank in the early hours of the morning.—U.P.A.