CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21646, 17 May 1932, Page 8

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

POST OFFICE THIEVES • How the police of Sutton, Surrey, laid a trap for burglars who broke into the post office was revealed at the Old Bailey when Robert Little, aged 36, storekeeper, and Alfred Miller, aged 30, carpenter, were each sentenced to three years’ penal servitude for post office breaking. Prosecuting counsel- said that the Sutton post office was broken into. The police thought it might be broken into again. They therefore arranged for a burglar alarm to ring a gong in an adjacent telephone box. At 3 o’clock one morning the operator on duty heard the gong, and he immediately rang up the police station. A force of 20 police surrounded the post office, and Little and Miller were caught red-handed. Miller said to his captor: “ All right, guv’nor, it’s a fair cop. I will go quietly.” Little remarked: “You have caught us red-handed. We won’t make any trouble.” Between the two burglaries at Sutton, the two men had broken into two other post offices and stolen property. They declined to give the police any account of themselves, but told the judge they were both out of work.

Passing sentence, the recorder, Sir Ernest Wild, K.C., described the two men as a nuisance to the countryside, and expressed the hope that they would serve their sentences in different penal settlements.

“ I think the Conduct of the police and their prescience should be brought to the notice of the commissioner,” the judge added. “ I am glad the police are engaged in looking after serious crime in some cases.”