BRUTAL ASSAULT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19806, 23 May 1934, Page 2

BRUTAL ASSAULT

STEEL AND CHOPPER USED POLICE SEARCH FOR ALLEGED THIEVES HAMILTON. May 22. Police cars to-day are scouring the eastern Waikato district for two young men, who after a brutal assault on a storekeeper at 1 Tirau early last evening, appropriated a car at Hinuera and entered upon a night of crime, including four cases of theft or attempted theft. The first episode occurred at Tirau, where at the shop of S. J. Bear, a butcher, an attempt was made to remove the safe. The thieves forced an entry through the rear entrance, breaking open the door of the office, removed the safe and lifted it upon the counter. At this stage, however, MiBear, his daughter and solicitor, passed. and seeing the safe on the counter, entered, the thieves apparently decamping by the back door. About an hour and a half later, Frank Rose, a storekeeper, of Tirau, found the locks of the garage door forced, and on making further investigations, he suddenly came across two men in the darkness. One grasped him found the arms, while the other struck him with repeated blows on the head. He fell to the ground, and fought strenuously. He called loudly for help before his assailants successfully gagged him with a handkerchief. His cries for assistance were heard by a bowser attendant, who was followed shortly by several other neighbours. He rushed to the aid of the injured man, who was bleeding profusely from extensive wounds on the head. Lying on the ground beside him were a steel and a chopper. Later a car was appropriated at Hinuera, and the thieves were subsequently surprised at Matamatu in attempting to force the lock of a bowser pump at Waharoa. They were successful in their quest for benzine, the lock of the pump being smashed, and eight gallons of petrol removed. At Hinuera the store was entered and groceries stolen. One Suspect Arrested. After a thrilling chase at Karapiro, near Cambridge, one of the men believed to have been associated in the incidents that occurred last night, was arrested this afternoon by Constables Kelly and Cotter. Senior-Sergeant Carroll, of Rotorua, was driving a police car near Karapiro when a suspicious car was seen, but the driver made off before any opportunity of accosting him could be obtained at a speed of 60 miles an hour over rough country roads, outstripped the police and made good his escape. Following up, however, the police came across the same car, believed to be one stolen from Hinuera, abandoned. An hour or two later a young man was arrested.