FOUR MEN IN A CAR

Southland Times, Issue 20203, 14 June 1927, Page 4

FOUR MEN IN A CAR

CAUGHT BY LONE CONSTABLE. MELBOURNE SAFEBLOWERS. IMPORTANT ARRESTS. Vigilance of a Sydney traffic policeman, and a fortuitous accident, resulted this week in the arrest of four men in a car, and will lead, police believe, to the solution of the mystery surrounding many safebreaking episodes in Victoria, and at least two similar cases in the country districts of New South Wales. Following the blowing of safes at Orange and Deniliquin, two New South Wales country towns, suspicion centred on four men who had been seen in both towns about the time of the robberies. They were, it was thought, making for Sydney, and consequently warning telegrams were sent through to police headquarters. Information contained in them was telephoned to police stations all along the routes they might take on their journey into the city, and special men were detailed to w'atch the main roads.

One of these men was Constable Kinsella, of Auburn, and he was on duty at an intersection of Parramatta Road, Auburn, when a small car, in which were packed four men, flashed past. He noticed that the number plate was missing from the car, and that its description tallied with that of the wanted car. Kinsella jumped on his motor cycle and gave chase. The men in the car saw him coming and they told the driver. In a moment of indecision he looked round, and while his attention was taken from the road the car crashed into a motor lorry, effectively stopping its progress. Kinsella was on their heels, as it were, and he jumped from his cycle and covered the men w’ith his revolver while they were still extricating themselves from the wreckage. They gave him no trouble, in view of his arms, and at the point of the gun he forced them to drive to the local police station, where they were held.

In their possession were found many suits' of clothes, proceeds of robberies in country towns, housebreaking implements, and two tins containing fuse and gelignite, ready fitted and cut for insertion in the locks of safes. The car in which they were driving when arrested has been identified as one stolen from a Victorian garage months ago. One of the men had more than £2O in small-silver and copper coins, and this amount coincides with an amount stolen from a safe blown the night before at Orange. Apprised of the facts, Melbourne C.I.D. replied that the men were believed identical with four men blamed for numerous safebreaking cases which ocurred in Melbourne nightly for two months recently. Members of the gang responsible for the Melbourne cases were obviously amateurs and using so much explosive on the safes they burst open that detectives anticipated that one or more of them would be blown up eventually. They evaded capture in Melbourne by a hair-breadth, and eventually disappeared two weeks before the arrests near Sydney. It is regarded as one of the most important police coups for years.