THIEVES' MISTAKE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21845, 6 July 1934, Page 18

THIEVES' MISTAKE

BURGLAR ALARM SOUNDED RESULT OF CARELESSNESS After breaking a hole in the brick wall of a shop at Darlington, Sydney, recently, thieves piled up tobacco, cigars and cigarettes worth .£3OO, ready for removal, and then, through momentary carelessness, set off a burglar alarm. Police who arrived at the shop a few minutes later found a set of excellent burglars' tools. Detectives said they were convinced that the attempted robbery was the work of a gang which had carried out several similar robberies.

The theft had evidently been planned with meticulous care. Shortly after seven o'clock on the Sunday morning the thieves drove a car into a yard off Hose Street, adjacent to the premises of H. Green berg and Sons, grocers and wholesale merchants. With a crowbar and chisel they knocked a hole in the brick wall of the premises large enough to admit a man's body. They were screened from view from the road by a fence and worked at their leisure, as the premises were unoccupied during the week-end.

After entering the shop the thieves carefully cut a panel from a door of a storeroom, in which a large quantity of tobacco was stacked. Evidently they were aware that tho premises were equipped with burglar alarms and that one was fixed to the door, as it would have been the work of only a few seconds to wrench open tho door with a crowbar.

It is assumed that one man climbed through the opening in the door, which was locked on the inside, and stacked the tobacco ready for removal, and that he then opened tho door in attempting to disconnect the burglar alarm and set it off

The shrill clamour of the alarm was heard several hundred yards away and within a few minutes the polico received a telephone message. A detective and other policemen raced to the shop in a police car, but arrived a few minutes after the thieves had driven away.