DAZED BY BLOW OH HEAD

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1931, Page 11

DAZED BY BLOW OH HEAD

DOCTOR’S FIGHT WITH THIEF EARLY MORNING PYJAMA CHASE. NEW PLYMOUTH HOUSE ENTERED INTRUDER MANAGES TO ESCAPE. Dazed by a blow on the head from a heavy object after he had chased and pinned against a tree a man whom he found in his house at the corner of Powderham and Dawson Streets, New Plymouth, at 5 o’clock yesterday morning, Dr. W. R. Wade was forced to release the intruder, who made good his escape. A search of the house revealed that a bunch of keys in a leather holder were missing from Dr. Wade’s clothes. Dr. Wade’s injury was not serious. An attempt was also made early yesterday morning to effect an entrance to a house in Dawson Street owned by Miss Rundle and occupied as flats. The occupants of two sets oi flats both reported hearing someone trying the doors of their apartments without success. It was also reported that a house in Fulford Street received a visit from a man early the same morning. A man was seen in the garden of the house about 10 o’clock on the previous night. Dr. Wade was awakened by a strange sound in his room and saw a man leaving the room and descending the stairway. He jumped from his bed and seized the intruder before he could escape and after a struggle eventually captured him outside the house and pinned him against a tree in the garden, calling for help in the hope that some of the neighbours might come to his assistance. While he was thus held the man struck Dr. Wade on the back of the head, presumably with a stone. Dr. Wade was partly incapacitated and the thief Lroke away and escaped, though the doctor’s cries had attracted the attention of people in the houses on two other corners of the intersection. When men from these houses arrived the intruder had disappeared. The police were s summoned, and Constables Mite, i and O’Neill were on the scene in a few minutes. A search of the locality by three police officers in the darkness just before dawn failed to disclose any sign of the stranger. A search of the house showed that the bunch of keys was tl only article missing. . There was nothing to indicate how the man had made his entrance to the house, but he appeared to have taken precautions against the possible necessity for a hurried exit, as the door on the Dawson Street side of the house was open and the swing door of the vestibule near the waiting room had been propped ope- with a chair. It is believed that the man had been into at least one other room of the doctor’s house, one of the children declaring that a man caught hold of her hand and spoke to her.