VIOLENT HIGHWAYMEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 21 October 1911, Page 8

VIOLENT HIGHWAYMEN

TIMEKEEPER STUNNED AJN'i) ROBBED OF BAG CONTAINING £230.

One of the most daring highway robberies, with violence reported for a long time past has occurred at Erith, Kent. The victim, who has suffered severe injuries, is George Stokes, 38, a timekeeper at the Erith Oil Woa-ks. Returning from the bank at Erith with a bag containing £230 10s, the weekly wages of the employees, Stokes was passing along a private road over the marshes known as Church Manorway, when he wits sc:t upon by two men. wJio jumped from a hedgerow. One of them felied him to the ground with a heavy blow in the face. Then the two ruffians dolibrately kicked him into unconsciousness.

Coming en the sc-. ne shortly afterwards another oil works employ-!e found St-k-es lying insensible, and raised an alarm. A doctor was called, and found the timekeeper suffering firom a fractured nose, cut lips, and severe abdominal injuries. Before being removed to his home Stokes recovered consciousness and was ab'e to describe his assailants to the police. It is surmised that the assailants had a boat in which tihey escaped to the Essex side of the river. Two boys wdio were about 200 yards from the scene of the occurrence at the tinii, although they did not see the attack on Stokes, noticed the men disappear round the corner of a high bank in the direction of the Thames