SEVEN BURGLARIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23392, 26 December 1945, Page 2

SEVEN BURGLARIES

Home Secretary’s House “Nerve-racking Business LONDON. Dec. 9. Although his own home has been burgled seven times, Britain’s Home Secretary. Mr. Chuter Ede, is convinced that London’s criminals have not got out of hand. Mr Chuter Ede said in the House of Commons tiiat. he did not agree that the increase in the number of burglaries and hold-ups suggested that the situation was beyond control. He announced that the police were organising counter-measures, including the return of policemen from the services and an acceleration in police

recruiting. Later, however, Mrs. Ede confessed that her life had been made a “nerveracking business” by the frequency of burglarious visitors. She believes that the only solution to her troubles is an increase in the police force. A succession of burglaries during the past 13 years has forced the Ede family to give up their home in an isolated locality at Mitcham, Surrey. Once, when on holiday, they lost practically all their furniture. Another time they' returned to find all Mr. Ede’s suits and shirts packed and ready for removal. A collection of antique jewellery was one of their greatest lasses. “At other times the burglars took the oddest things." said Mrs. Ede. “Once it was a solitary silver clock. Then all our cutlery went. Later on just odds and ends were stolen." Mr Ede admitted that a considerable number of crimes were committed bv Army deserters. His department could not deal with the suggestion that a military amnesty might induce deserters to return to the service, he