DARING JEWEL ROBBERY

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1931, Page 9

DARING JEWEL ROBBERY

BRICK THROUGH WINDOW. SENSATION IN BRISBANE. Before the eyes of hundreds of passersby in a Brisbane street one night recently, a desperate robber hurled a brick muffled with a handkerchief through one of the windows of a jewellery shop, grabbed two trays containing more than £4OO worth of diamond rings and brooches and made a clean get-away. A man was seen standing on the footpath near the main entrance to the shop shortly before seven o’clock. Under his arm was a brown paper parcel. Pedestrian traffic at the time was heavy. When a few minutes later it thinned out slightly the man was seen by two persons to walk toward the vestibule of the shop. Within a flash one of the windows was shattered by a brick wrapped in a hand; kerchief. The hole made wa<s almost a foot in diameter, and the man had little trouble in extracting one of the trays, but the other came through the jagged opening only with the greatest difficulty. In no way perturbed by the presence of onlookers, who were for the moment dumbfounded, the thief stalled the two trays under his coat and walked hurriedly away. He had gone only a few yards when lie suddenly broke into a smart run. Immediately several persons hurried after him, but he was not secured. 'The jnotorinan and conductor of a trainear stated that the man had been noticed to board a tram ami to the surprise of both had walked through the car and alighted at the front. He was then lost to sight.