DARING BANK RAIDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22568, 11 May 1935, Page 14

DARING BANK RAIDS

ROBBERS IN MASKS CRIMES SKILFULLY PLANNED. Mr Justice Porter, at Manchester recently ordered two of three men concerned in two bank raids in about six weeks to be birched. The other, it was stated, was physically unfit to receive the birch. The accused—Leo Kleva, aged 23 j Arthur Wood, aged 32; and William Michael Kingham, aged 24—appeared on four charges: Robbery with aggravation on November 2G, 1934, and stealing from Martins Bank, Cheetham Hill road, Manchester, £687; robbery with violence on the same occasion; robbery with aggravation by stealing on January 3, 1935, £490 from the district bank branch at Prestwich; robbery with violence on the same occasion. Wood and Kleva had pleaded guilty to all the charges, Kingham pleaded guilty only to robbery with aggravation, and this was accepted. Mr Lustgarten, prosecuting, said that the charges arose from two robberies, carefully planned and executed with skill and very great daring. On November 20 last the three men entered the bank in Cheetham Hill road. They were armed with guna and the lower parts of their faces were covered.

Under threat of the weapons the two officials in the bank not unnaturally allowed themselves to be tied hand and foot. Pepper was thrown into their faces, and the men left the bank with £OBO. Outlining the travels of the men after the first robbery, Mr Lustgarten said it was not uninteresting to record that as they passed Dartmoor on the way from Penzance to Paignton one of them remarked, "To-day there are more criminals outside Dartmoor than in." On January 3 last they raided the branch at Prestwich. There they adopted the same methods, guns, faces covered, and they came away with £490. On January 6 Kingham was arrested in a Manchester street, and Wood in a hotel. The men then had £l6O 18s remaining of the £1177 they had obtained from the banks. Detective-Inspector Airey said that Kingham in 1927 joined the navy, but after twice deserting he was discharged. Since returning home in 1933 he had not followed any employment. Wood was a married man with two children, but he had left his wife in 1931. He came of a very respectable family. Kleva was the son of Lithuanian parents. He had had a good record. Mr Burton, for Wood, said one afternoon the three men went to a kinenia and there saw a film with a bank raid as part of the plot. It was as a result of that that they subsequently decided to engage in that dangerous venture. Mr Justice Porter said it was idle to speak of the robbery being the result of a sudden mad impulse when there had been two robberies in a month and ahalf. Kleva was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment; Wood to 15 months' imprisonment and 12 strokes with the birch; and Kingham to one year and 12 strokes.