ATTACK IN STORE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19666, 25 June 1938, Page 5

ATTACK IN STORE

NEW LYNN COMPLAINT MAN HIT WITH HAMMER SEVERE HEAD WOUND -YOUTH MAKES ESCAPE (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Shortly before 5.30 o’clock yesterday afternoon a youth walked into a cycle store kept by Mr. W. H. Isdale, of New Lynn, and while the storekeeper’s back was turned the youth attacked him with .a hammer, severely wounding Mr. Isdale just over the left ear. The youth decamped. Mr. Isdale did not lose consciousness, though he last a great deal of blood and for several hours afterward he showed obvious effects of his experience. He refused, however, to have the attention from a doctor.

Fingerprints on the hammer and a description given by both the injured man and a bystander outside the shop provided valuable clues for the police, who are conducting a widespread search.

Mr. Isdale said that he kept two shops, a small general store and a cycle shop side by side. A well-built youth, about 16 years of age, entered the grocery £tore and asked Mr. Isdale if he had any cycle ballbearings the size of one he produced. Mr. Isd'ale went through the front door and into the cycle shop, followed by the youth.

Mr. Isdale went straight to the shelves behind the counter, which is about 2ft. wide, and was about to take down a ; small box of cycle ballbearings from a lower shelf when he was struck a hard blow on the side of the head. “‘I did not fall to the floor, but a felt very sick,” Mr. Isdale said, “and 1 managed to turn my head in time to see the youth drop a hammer which had been lying on the counter and hurry out of the door.” Constable Boag arrived shortly afterward and as soon as Mr. Isdale had informed him of the facts, he set oft in his motor car in search of the youth, who made off on a Constable Boag advised the Auckland detective office and men were dispatened in a police patrol car to scour the neighbourhood.