ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 June 1932, Page 12

ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE

GANGS OF MASKED MEN. EPIDEMIC OF BAG-SNATCHING. Numerous cases of robbery, some of them accompanied by violence, have been reported in Sydney recently. Masked men have figured in several cases, and there has been a veritable epidemic of bag-snatching. Members of the Newton police are investigating a robbery which was committed by masked and presumably armed men in Rawson Street, Newton, recently. Mr. Herbert Pendelbury reported that he was entering his home with his wife, after having been to the pictures, when he met a thief, whose face was partly covered by black cloth. A second man appeared, who was armed with what appeared to be a revolver. He struck Mrs. Pendelbury, and robbed her of her bag, containing about £l. Both men ran into the street. Mr. Pendelbury was chasing them, when a third man ran beside him ami hit him in tlje face. Detectives found that the * thieves had. entered the house through a back window. Miss Fili Harnilton-Cobley, aged 25, of Beach Road, Edgecliff, attacked by a masked man who entered her home early on a recent morning. The man entered the bedroom in which the woman was sleeping through a window. According to the story she told the police, she stirred in bed, and he struck her on the head with a. piece of iron. She rolled to the floor. The man apparently only then realised that he had attacked a woman. “I'm sorry,” he. said. “I did not know you were a. woman.” “Take my money and go,” she replied, The man refused to take, the money, and left by the window. The woman was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital by the Central District Ambulance and treated for cuts on the head. . Robert McArthur, of Wellbank Street, Concord, was assaulted and robbed on Central railway station early on the morning of May 22. He told the Regent, Street police that he was suddenly set upon by five men and two women, who beat him until he was helpless to prevent them from searching his pockets and taking a wallet containing £5 and a cheque. McArthur was left injured and dazed. Doctors at Sydney hospital treated him for a broken nose and probably a fracture of the jaw.

The sneak-thieves who rob women walking along ill-lit or lonely roads ' are increasing in number, and have become a menace to women in the suburbs. On one night recently ten women were robbed of their handbags, and amounts ranging from a few shillings to money and jewellery valued at £25 were stolen. Tho police believe that organised gangs of men are operating, and are convinced that the night’s thefts were I the work of three separate bodies of malefactors. Every effort is being made by detectives to apprehend the men. In several cases the thieves struck their victims. In every case tho bag-snatchers employed stolen motor-cars to provide a quick means of escape. Three cars were stolen from the city and employed on the work. .The men drove up slowly behind unescorted women, one of their number leaped from the car, snatched the bag, jumped back into the vehicle, and was driven off. Winifred G. Hegarty, of Eastbourne Avenue, Darling Point, was walking along Darling Point Road, at about 9 o’clock on a recent night, when a car pulled up near her. A man jumped out, grabbed her bag and jumped, back into the vehicle. The bag contained £3 in notes and a quantity of silver. Later Miss Dorothy Davoren, of Lang Road, Centennial Park, reported that . her handbag, which contained some and jewellery, valued in all at £25, had been stolen from her in similar circumstances in Lang Road. Two other women reported similar thefts. They were robbed in Darling Point. Cases of bag-snatching were reported at North Sydney stations, one at CrcmornO, two at Mosman, two at Chatswood, one at Artarm on, and one . at North Sydney. A man attempted

to rob a girl of 14 in Victoria Avenue Chatswood. She screamed, and he became frightened, and ran to his waithm carl He drove away, but the vehicle stopped several hundred yards down the street. It had run ou o petrol. He escaped. The car had been stolen from Hie city.