TEAM CONDUCTOR ROBBED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20820, 12 March 1931, Page 11

TEAM CONDUCTOR ROBBED.

ATTACKED BY TWO MEN. LEFT UNCONSCIOUS ON LINE. % Two thieves boarded a tram at Bondi, Sydney, late one night recently, and after battering tho tram conductor into insensibility robbed him of his bag and left him lying unconscious on the tramline. Tho police say they believe that a \voman was implicated in the robbery and acted as a decoy. Bound for the Waverley depot, the tram left North Bondi at about 11.30 p.m., in charge of Cecil Cooper. E. A. Ward was the conductor. When nearing a stopping place the driver noticed a woman'alight from a car. A railway-bound tram was in front of the depot car, but tho woman allowed it to pass and signalled Cooper to stop. She boarded the tram and sat in the rear compartment. The conductor was seated in the front of the tram and there were no other passengers on board. When tho tram reached a deep cutting some distance further on, two men boarded the car. Both entered the rear smoking compartment. Mr. Ward moved down the footboard with' the intention of collecting Mio fares. That was the last the motormtn saw of him. At tho end of the cutting the woman alighted. She had travelled two stops. When tho tram reached tho depot some minutes later the driver found that both the men and the conductor had disappeared. Several minutes after tho depot tram had passed through tho cutting the driver of a following city-bound tram noticed a man lying near tho rails. He stopped. The man was Mr. Ward. He was lying a few inches from the rails and was bleeding profusely from severe wounds' in his head. He was unconscious. His bag, which contained about £3, was missing. It is believed that as the car passed through the cutting the two men flung themselves upon the conductor, threw him to tho ground, punched and kicked him unmercifully until he lost consciousness, robbed him of his day's takings and decamped.