CAUGHT IN THE ATTIC.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume V, Issue 1329, 17 May 1918, Page 9 (Supplement)

CAUGHT IN THE ATTIC.

DESERTERS ARRESTED.

INCIDENT IN VICTORIA STREET

Two military deserters from ramp, named Patrick Harry Painter and William George Price, were arrested at the home of the latter, in Victoria Street, at a very early hour this morning, under exceptional circumstances.

The police, having received information that the men were to be found at Price's home, a party of detectives, constables and two mounted men, numbering 10 in all, under Detective-Sergeant Gibson, was organised to effect the arrest. The party left the police station at 3 o'clock this morning, and surrounded the house, but made no attempt to enter until clear daylight. Then Detective-Sergeant Gibson knocked at the front door, and an elderly lady, presumably Price's mother, answered. She said, in answer to a question, that the men were not there. She attempted to lock the door, but the police pushed their way in, the old lady going on in front and locking the doors as she went on ahead.

The police, however, were not to be baulked, and forced the doors from room to room until they reached an attic at the top of the house. Here Mounted-Constable Grigg, who was a member of the party, was hoisted up on to the shoulders of his comrades, and thence up into the attic, where both the deserters were —at least one of the men being seen in his shirt, apparently just as he had been aroused suddenly from sleep.

Little trouble was experienced in bringing the men both down into the lower room. Before six o'clock they were in the cells at the police station. To-day the delinnuents were handed over to the military authorities.