GIRL, 10, FAKES HOLD-UP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 7 June 1945, Page 2

GIRL, 10, FAKES HOLD-UP

FOUND ON BED, BOUND AND GAGGED Detectives raced to a house in an isolated part of Terry Hills, French’s Forest, in Sydney, to investigate a story by a girl aged 10 that, during the absence of her mother and grandmother, four men, who drove up in a motor car, had bound and gagged her and then ransacked the house. When the girl’s mother and grandmother returned 1. >me they found the girl struggling on a bed. A cloth was tied tightly round her mouth, her legs were bound with pyjama cords, and her wrists were manacled with her grandmother’s gold bangle. The girl appeared to be in a state of hysteria. She said that four men arrived at the house soon after she returned home from school at lunchtime. They held her on the bed while they bound and gagged her, and then ransacked every room. The condition of the rooms in the house substantiated her story. Drawers had been opened and the contents thrown about. Jewellery and money were missing from where the girl’s mother and grandmother had left them. Detectives questioned the girl for some time. Eventually she admitted that she had bound and gagged herself, had hidden the jewellery in various parts of the house, and then had concocted the story. She gave as her reason that she did not want to be sent to a boarding school. Later, the girl, whose father died about six months ago, took the detectives to the places about the liouse where she had hidden the jewellery. In reply to the detectives, the girl denied having got the idea from either books or moving pictures. Sh e said that the idea just came over her because she did not want to be sent to a boarding school.