COOL BANDIT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20374, 3 July 1934, Page 5

COOL BANDIT.

Held Up Three Men and

Got £I3OO.

SYDNEY SENSATION

(Special to the ** Star.’’) SYDNEY. June 26. This morning the people of Sydney who happened to be about the west end of Martin Place received another reminder that this city is “getting more like Chicago every day.” At 9.30 a.m. Herbert Ward, paymaster of the Public Works Department, drove in a car from the P.W.D. office to the Bank of New South Wales—which faces George Street looking up Martin Place —and stopped at the side entrance in Wynyard Street. His business was to cash a P.W.D. cheque for £I3OO, and then to go round to a number of suburban relief works to pay the men. He had with him Eric Green, as armed escort and Edgar Brown as driver.

Ward and Green went into the bank, Brown remaining in the car. They soon got the cash and returned to the car. Just as they had got inside and Brown was about to start, a man, described later as young and well-built, jumped into the front seat of the car. Pulling out a revolver and threatening the three men with it he ordered them to do as he told them. “I mean business,” he added, menacingly. At first the three Government officials thought that the whole affair must be a joke, but they were soon undeceived. “Drive into Carrington Street,” said the stranger to the driver, who naturally hesitated; and the bandit, to quicken his movements, brought his revolver heavily down on the side of Brown’s head. Furious Struggle. For the moment Brown was hall unconscious, and when he recovered. Green and Ward and the bandit were mixed up in a furious hand-to-hand struggle. Ward picked up the wooder box which they had in charge, containing over £SOO, and aimed a heavy blow the bandit, but missed him. and the

bandit, who have behaved with remarkable coolness throughout, gave his order again to Brown—“ Drive into Carrington Street.” Brown, having no alternative and being still half dazed : obeyed, and so the car turned the corner into Carrington Street, which starts only a few yards from the bank, and runs at right angles to Wynyard Street and parallel to George Street, along the side of Wynyard Square toward the harbour. But Green and Ward were still wrestling with the bandit, and as the ear turned the corner, Ward leaned forward to seize the hand holding the revolver. The bandit fired, and Ward fell back with blood flowing from his shoulder, where the bullet had lodged. Then turning quickly tho bandit hit Green on the head with his weapon and ordered them to get out of the car. They could do nothing else but get out, and then Green dodged behind the car, and, drawing liis revolver, took a hurried ‘pot shot” at the bandit. How They Escaped.

Brown in a subsequent interview testi aed that before the close of the affair he noticed a wound on the side of the bandit’s nose, but he was still too confused by the rough treatment that lie had received to say whether it seemed to have been caused by a bullet or uot. When the P.W.D. car was examined later on, the detectives found a bullet mark on it, and they surmise that Green’s bullet ricocheted and hit the bandit. However this may be, tie bandit, having got rid of Ward and Green, jumped from the ear and threw into the roadway the box' and bag containing the money which the officials were taking from the bank £l3OO. Close behind them was another car, moving, slowly along—a blue touring car, which was evidently waiting for the bandit. He threw the money into it, leaped in himself, and in a second they were off at high speed down Carrington Street. They turned westward into Margaret Street, and thenee into Kent Street, which they- fallowed at a headlong pace, regardless of the traffic, toward the Town Hall—evidently intending to turn off at Market Street, cross Pyrmont Bridge, and so get away on to the Balmain side of Darling Harbour.

All this happened very quickly; in fact. Brown said later that from the time that Green and Ward came out of the bank till the robber vanished not more

than three minutes elapsed. Of course i large number of people heard the shot* fired and noticed the commotion, but no Dne seemed to take the initiative. Ward, with blood flowing freely from his wounded arm, staggered down the street • calling for the police, but in the meantime the bandit—to use the picturesque >hrase so hard-worked in piovie gangsterland —had “made his getaway.” One bj'stander, however, acted with commendable promptitude and presence of mind, and very nearly cut off the banJit‘a retreat. Mr. E. Welch, a traveller for a firm of paper merchants, was standing about 100 yards away, at the corner of Wynyard and York Streets, when he heard the shots, watched the man jump from one car to another, and >aw the blue tourer speeding up Carrington Street. Realising at once that the easiest way out of the city for the robber lay over the Harbour Bridge or across Pyrmont Bridge, Mr. Welch ran down Erskine Street into Kent Street, from which he could follow the movements of the fugitives. Sure enough tho blue tourer turned from Margaret Street into Kent Street, and as it was rapidly approaching him, Mr. Welch hailed a passing car and appealed for help. As the fugitives passed he jumped into tho car to follow them, but unfortunately it was a car quite unequal to the task of overtaking the blue tourer. By tho time the bandit reached Pyrmont Bridge he was 150 yards ahead, and theu came his final stroke of good fortune. Tbo swing-bridge was just opening to let a steamer pass, the blue car made a dash and got over in time—the last car to get across—and Mr. Welch was left lamenting on the city side of Darling Harbour. So the bandit got safely away with £I3OO of Government money, and if ha were not a bandit and a gunman, and therefore a potential murderer, one might feel inclined to compliment him on the skill and coolness that he displayed in bringing off such a “coup” as this in the heart of the city. As it is—well, the detectives are hard at work.