IMPUDENT BURGLARY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 October 1925, Page 5

IMPUDENT BURGLARY.

FURNITURE REMOVED. AN AUCKLAND . INCIDENT. v <JBY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATIONAUCKLAND, Sept. 30. A most impudent burglary was committed in broad daylight in St. Stephen’s Avenue, Parnell, yesterday, but fortunately the missing property was all recovered at an auction mart, and now all that is wanted is the daring individual whose fei-tile braindevised the plan and carried it out with' a coolness that completely deceived a well-known auctioneering firm of high standing, and quite lulled, the suspicions or neighbours. The scene of this cool piece of impudence was a large house in St, Stephen’s Avenue, Parnell, owned by Mr. H. P. Kissling, general manager of the New Zealand insurance Company. At present Mr. and Mrs. Kissling are away in Sydney on a holiday visit.

A v well-known firm of auctioneers yesterday received a call from a weddressed young man, who gave out that he was Kissling’s son, and said he , wanted certain of the furniture in the St. Stephen’s Avenue residence, sold off during his father’s absence. He asked that the firm should send a representative up with a motor-lorry and the things would be pointed out to him. Accordingly the firm sent up a reliable man with a motor-lorry. Arriving at the house, the auctionroom employee was admitted by the young man who was impersonating Kissling’s son. They went inside, and the young man led the auctioneering firm’s representative and his assistant into various rooms and pointed out the furniture which he said was superfluous. Accordingly . all the articles pointed out; —and they made quite a. load —were packed up and taken down to the auction mart in Queen - ,0 Street.

As Mr. and Mrs. Kissling were away in Sydney, some of the people who saw the furniture being removed wondered, but the thing was so openly done and the name on the lorry looked so respectable that they were completely disarmed. Anyhow, the furniture was removed to the auction room and duly sold, but in the meantime the fact that Kissling’s house had been entered had been discovered, and the police- were. put on the trail. How the young burglar with the inventive turn of mind got in is--not' quite clear, but a door, at the . back had . one of the panes removed, or part of it taken out, and it is probable that he was able to open the door through' the opening. . . \ 5 ■ Fortunately the burglar was not clever enough to reap ■ the reward of his misplaced ingenuity and risk. All the goods were recovered at the auction mart, as they had not been removed.