NIGHT OF CRIME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20311, 22 May 1934, Page 8

NIGHT OF CRIME.

Police Searching for Two Young Men. ASSAULT ON STOREKEEPER. Per Press Association. 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 Tirau earl)' last evening, appropriated a car at Ilinuera, 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 Mr S. J. Bear, a butcher, an attempt was made to remove the safe. The burglars forced an entry through the rear entrance. Breaking open the "door of the office, they removed the safe, and lifted it on to the counter. At this stage, however, Mr Bear’s daughter and a solicitor passed and, seeing the safe on the counter, entered the premises. The thieves apparently decamped by the back door. .About an hour and a half later Mr Frank Rose, a storekeeper, of Tirau, found the locks of his garage door forced, and, on making further investigation, he suddenly came across two men in the darkness. One grasped him round the arms, while the other struck him with repeated blows on the head. He fell to the ground, but fought strenuously and called loudly for help before his assailants successfully gagged him with a handkerchief. His cries for assistance were heard by a bowser attendant, and 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 Ilinuera, and the thieves were subsequently surprised at Matamata in attempting to force the lock of a bowser pump. At Waharoa they were successful in their quest for benzine, the lock of a pump being smashed, and eight gallons of petrol removed. At Hinuera a store was entered and groceries stolen.