ASSAULT AND ROBBERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19809, 2 December 1927, Page 14

ASSAULT AND ROBBERY.

DARING CRIME AT BLUFF. SUM OF £240 MISSING. | ATTACK ON ACCOUNTANT. "THEFT FROM BOARD'S OFFICE. [by telegraph.--own correspondent.] INVERCARGILL, Thursday. A daring robbery was committed at Bluff thin morning, £240 being stolen from the Bluff Harbour Board's office after the accountant had been rendered unconscious. About 10.30 a.m. Mr. R. Neil Porter, a clerk on the staff of the board, returned to the office from the wharf to find the accountant, Mr. Arthur iValentine, lying on the floor near the counter unconscious, with a long gash in his head and blood on the floor. On recovering consciousness Mr. Valentine asked,, "Where is the cash ?" It was then discovered that £240, the wages for crews of the board's vessels, was missing. Only bank notes were taken, a large quantity of silver being left untouched. The time chosen for the theft could not have been better, since most of the people in Bluff were down at the wharf watching the departure of the new tug Southland on her first official trip to Stewart Island. Mr. Valentine was alone in the office, where there are usually no fewer than seven people. The other members of the staff were at the wharf. The train arrived at Bluff at 10.5 and discharged a crowd of passengers, including the guests of the Harbour Board, many of whom called to receive invitations at the office, so that for a few moments Mr. Valentine was very busy. A Blow on the Head. Mr. Valentine states that he then took the money for the crew and the pay envelopes and placed them on a bench opposite the pxiblic counter, about 4ft. away from it. He turned round and bent down to take an envelope from under the public counter and received a blow on the head. That is the last he remembers. Ho is unable to say whether or not the train had left for town, as it usually does at 10.15, but it must then have been near that time. Tho circumstances attendant on the theft are very peculiar, not the least of them being the narrow escape tho thief had from being caught in the act. 'About 10.30 a clerk in the bank, which is next door in the same building, went to the door to see the tug off, and noticed with surprise that Mr. Valentine was not at the Harbour Board door. He started to go into the office, and got as far as the main door when he heard footsteps in the office which he recognised as not those of Mr. Valentine. Thinking it might be an official of the board and not wishing to interrupt, lie returned to his own office. Since there was no one else then in the Harbour Board's office, the steps must have been those of the thief, who, to get the money, would have to walk through the inner door of the office to the bench on which it was lying. This door Mr. Porter on his return found wide open. Paper Weight as Weapon.

The wound on Mr. Valentine's head was inflicted by a paper weight covered with velvet. It was about 4in. long, and on the right-hand side of the top of the bead.

Jt was suspected that (be thief had left in a motor-car after the crime, but telephone inquiries to Greenhills and Awarua elicited information that no ear had passed toward Invercargill withiri about 20 minutes of the theft. It is well known in Bluff that the crews of the Harbour Board vessels are paid on the first day of the month, and as yesterday was a bank holiday the thief would rightly assume that the money had been drawn from the bank on Monday. Mr. Valentine is not seriously injured, and on recovering consciousness was able to walk to the car which took him homo

This theft is strongly reminiscent of one committed six years ago, when Mr. W. Mann, the manager of the Bluff branch of tho Bank of New Zealand, was similarly assaulted. In that case, however, only £1 was secured. The thief was never discovered.