FIGHT WITH BANDIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 225, 23 September 1929, Page 8

FIGHT WITH BANDIT.

SYDNEY REVOLVER DUEL.

SHOOTING OF CONSTABLE.

THE SUSPECT ARRESTED.

WELL KNOWN BY LOCAL POLICE

The man arrested as the result of the clue of the dropped spectacle case in a Sydney suburb last Saturday week, when, after a revolver duel, Constable GrinJiam was shot in the groin, is Thomas Herbert Skinner (21)). Skinner, an Australian criminal, is well known to the Auckland detective stair. Following a thrilling motor car chase by detectives at 2 a.m. on thy morning of August C, 1927, Skinner and a female accomplice were both arrested. Skinner was convicted for his crime, and served a gaol sentence. Not long ago ho was released from Mount Eden prison and returned to Australia.

It will be remember that Constable P. Butler, now stationed at Devonport, about 1.30 on the morning of August G, 1U27, saw Skinner emerge from the doorway of a shop in.Khyber Pass and board a waiting motor car, which was slowly moving. The circumstances were suspicious, so the constable determined to inquire further into the strange occurrence. Constable Butler gave chase on the rear of a tramway employees motor cycle, the motor car going at a fast pace down Dominion Road. It went too fast, and soon left the motor cycle, tramway employee and policeman far behind. However, Detective Allen and Acting-Detective Kelly were near the end of Dominion Road when they heard the drone of a racing motor car some distance away. It approached them at a rapid speed, and they went out into the middle of the road to compel it to stop. Focussing their torches on the driver of the car, a woman, had no effect. The car did not attempt to stop, or even slow down. In fact, its speed was accelerated, and the car charged the two detectives, who had to rush to the side of the roadway to save being knocked down. Just at that moment, Mr. A. R. Ellis, who happened to be out late with his car, drove along. Both detectives got in his car, and Mr. Ellis immediately "stepped on the gas" and went off in hot pursuit of the other speeding car. Along the concrete roads the pursuing car attained a speed of nearly eighty miles per hour. Gradually the lead was reduced, and by the time the corner of Mount Albert and Dominion Roads was reached the front car was in sight. So close were the detectives to the other car that they hailed the man and woman and * ordered them to stop, but they continued on at full speed. For three miles both cars raced with not more than a few yards separating them. Down a Blind Road. "Just when we had made up our minds to ram the car from the rear," said Mr. Ellis to a "Star" reporter at the time, "the car we were chasing turned down a road which we knew was a blind road. The woman and the man, seeing that they were trapped, both got out as fast as they could and ran into a vacant section. The woman hid in some grass, and was shortly afterwards caught, but the man succeeded in getting away."

However, the police had not given up the chase for the man who accompanied the woman in the car. Shortly after four o'clock the same morning Skinner was arrested in a house in East Street, Newton.

Acting-Detective Kelly, who pursued the car, with Detective Allan and Constable Butler, fell off tho running board as the pursuing car dashed round a corner, and received injuries to his arm and leg. The injuries were not serious. The woman arrested was Ina Beatrice Wills.