WILD ENCOUNTER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 27 June 1935, Page 9

WILD ENCOUNTER

melee outside shop. t STORY OF FIGHT WITH BURGLAR r THREE MEN BEFORE COURT. (By Telegraph —Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 25. A thrilling story of a wild melee outside a grocer’s shop at Miramar was told in the Magistrate s Court to-day, when exploits alleged to have been carried out by three men on the night of May 29 and the early morning of May HO were investigated. The accused men were Henry Horace Smitu, aged 55, William Alexander Millar, W and Samuel Jamieson McKee, 24. They were charged with breaking and entering the counting house of New Zealand Fisheries Ltd. and stealing tobacco, cigarettes, brandy, Leer, an 'attache ease and £1 los 2d in cash, also with breaking and entering the shop of J. G. Furness, Miramar, and stealing goods and cash to the total value of £l6 12s ilOd. Furness in evidence said that about 3.10 a.m. on. May 30 he heard a. burglar alarm sound in his shop and 011 investigation found the shop door open and an unattended car standing outside. Ho tried to bold the door, which opened inwards, and felt pressure on it, but the door was pulled inwards. He exchanged blows with the first man out and received a blow on the check and another on the head. He dropped and his. assailant ran down the street, but just before he did so Mrs- Furness attacked him with a stick. Furness chased him but felt his strength failing and just as he was about to drop again he threw a tomahawk at him. The. man later doubled back on the other side of the road. About that time a ncxt-ch or neighbour came out and Furness heard a crash of glass, apparently from the windscreen of the car, in which he noticed three men. Where the other two men had been before he did not know. The car went away very soon afterwards, but he saw its number (83 — 618). It- was impossible to describe the car or the men. •His shop had been forced and there were jemmy marks on it. A glass panel was broken near tlic lock. The fanlight fittings also had been damaged. William James Mouat, a butcher and next-door' neighbour of Furness, said that when he was awakened by Mrs Furness ho came out on to the road carrying a small baton. “The engine of the car was running and the men were attempting to get away,” said Mouat. “I smashed the windscreen with my baton. The driver was evidently over the wheel at the time because I saw him lean backwards as I smashed the windscreen. He called out at me, ‘You mongrel.’ I stepped back and a tin of fruit came out of the cap and struck me on the chest. ’ ’ Evidence concerning fingerprints in connection with the burglary at New Zealand Fisheries Ltd. was given by tho police. More than a dozen witnesses were examined and many exhibits, including beer and brandy bottles, full and empty, sugar bags containing loot, and fingerprint photographs were produced. The accused men reserved their defence and were committed for trial.