ACROBAT BURGLARS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12252, 6 April 1935, Page 9

ACROBAT BURGLARS

HOW THEY THIEVED JEWELS

BOOTY WORTH £3,006

Burglars broke through three locked doors, sawed through iron bars and a four-lever Jock, to get £3OOO worth of jewellery in Aldgatc, East London, recently. They escaped with the hfiul doAvn a rope made of rolls of silk.

The raid was carried out with extraordinary daring at tne premises of Bussells, opposite the Aldgate Metropolitan station in High Street. The thieves gained an entrance to premises aboA T e the shop through a door leading from the street to a staircase 30 yards away from the jeweller’s. They smashed doAvn three doors until they reached a gown manufacturer's workshop immediately above Russell, and Removed several floorboards. and tried iu vain to smash through the ceiling ot tbe shop. Finding this useless, they climbed through a barred Avindoiv on bo a narrow ledge immediately aboA 7 e and at tho back of the jewellei' : .s. There is a 40-foot drop on to the Metropolitan Railway lines from the bridge. One of the burglars is believed to have lain on his stomach Avhile he cut with a hacksaAV through two iron bars of a skylight and then through the heavy lock. The tbie\ r es dropped into a cubicle behind the shop, and then Avent through to the AvindoAv. There they extracted, rings from dozens of pads .and after clearing the window tackled the counter cases. They climbed back to tbe ledge above the shop, and from the goiVn manufacturer's store took rolls of silken material. These they made into a rope. They lowered this to the railway linos below, tiod ono'cuyl to the iron bars and then climbed down it. Someone in a nearby building overlooking the back of tho jeweller’s saw the banging rope soon after da-Avn and told tho police. Tlie manager of the jeweller's shop told a reporter:—“When my assistant armed (shortly [before 8 o’clock he found tile front door locked and carried on as usual with three policemen looking at him from inside the shop. “They had entered by the same route as tho burglars. Their clcAmrness is astonishing, and they ran a great risk of dropping on to the electrified linos so close to. Aldgate station. Luckily some of our most valuable ; joAvellefy was in the safe ; they made no attempt to open it.” The burglars left jemmies aud crowbars behind.