WHOLE FAMILY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 August 1925, Page 5

WHOLE FAMILY.

SHOPLIFTERS CAUGHT.

EVEN NINE-YEAR-OLD

The most astounding discovery made luring the currency of the recent midwinter sales conducted by the big city stores has been the. result of the anest if a mother, her two daughters and a child of nine years. Police claim it to have been a clean-up of a whole family of shoplifters, and they were all caught in the act. . . . - Neither of the. two. girls is yet 2(1 years of age, but they’had'an'excellent plan of campaign. The procedure was to enter a store at which a sale was being conducted, and while the mother stood back the daughters would take small pieces of valuable- merchanadise, pass them swiftly to . the mother, who would secrete them, and then the family would move .off to fresh fields and pastures new. Even the child of nine had been trained to the same methods, and was, the police claim, quite an adept at picking up valuable items and “passing them' to mother.” Their actions in one store eventually drew the attention of a house detective. and he held them all up. They denied fiercely that they had taken anything, but when members of the Criminal Investigation Branch and a policeman were called in and the susnects searched goods from five other firms, as well as some from the place where they were arrested, were found in their possession. And when the detectives visited their home they found more than. £SO worth of similarly suspect material. The mother and daughters were charged.