SUSPECTS CHASED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23413, 1 August 1939, Page 15

SUSPECTS CHASED

SHOPKEEPER ROBBED SYDNEY STREET SCENE TWO MEN DETAINED [from our own* correspondent] > ' . SYDNEY, July 21. Nearly 100 people joined in a chase after two men in a city street, after a snatch-and-run theft of £26 from a tobacconist's shop, the owner of which was assaulted. The tobacconist. Mr. James Peters, was counting his clay's takings shortly before six o'clock when a man darted into the shop, leaned across the counter, and snached £'26 in notes from his hands. Mr. Peters grappled with his assailant and the two men lurched about the shop locked in each other's arms Mr. Peters had almost overcome the thief when another man rushed into the'shop and struck him a heavy blow in the face.' Mr. Peters fell. The two men ran outside, and the man with t'no money stuffed the banknotes into his inside vest pocket. Crying. "Stop, thief!" Mr. Peters ran on to the footpath, and saw two men running. One was holdiug the other by the collar, as though to make him run faster. A yelling crowd joined in the chase. Mr. Peters overhauled the two men. There was a wild scuffle lor several minutes. John Deoves, aged 27, a steward on the Aorangi, said: "The crowd did not interfere then. Peters kept on calling -out that he had been robbed of £26. One of the other men shouted: 'Take hint off. He is trying to knock us over.' (lie crowd was confused, and the men broke away again.'' A\ ith tho crowd still following, a man ran into another street and seized a messenger boy's cycle. The boy chased him, but was hit on the right ear. A short distance farther en the man on the bicycle was run down bv a taxicab and knocked unconscious. Near this spot. Peters, who arrived with the first hatch of pursuers, picked up a bundle of notes from the gutter. A policeman guarded the fallen man, who was taken to hospital, given treatment. and then removed to a police station.

Another man. meanwhile, had dashed away, but after a 50yds. chase lie was seized by John Deeves. "I asked him whv he did not star bv his injured mate" said Deeves. "He told me that ho did not know the other man. I brought him hack to a constable."