Stolen Car Turns Up At Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 81, 13 August 1948, Page 5

Stolen Car Turns Up At Tauranga

FURTHER BURGLARY DISCOVERED HERE Police have recovered Mr P. G. Hammond’s car, which was unlawfully removed from Hamill’s garage at Whakatane on Tuesday night. It was found at Tauranga, out of petrol, and with the starter jammed about 11 o’clock on Wednesday morning. So far as the Beacon could ascertain yesterday, no arrest had been made. Patterson’s Bargain store was also included* in the burglars’ raid on Tuesday night. The facts, which came to light too late for publication on Wednesday, are these: The thief, or .thieves, entered the building by scaling the back wall and removing the glass from one of the skylights. Some small silver, £5 worth, was taken from one of the tills, but there was evidence to suggest that the intruders tried to tamper with the safe. It had been moved slightly from its usual position, the slide covering the keyhole was open, a number of matches were strewn around it, and one of the shop assistants said she had noticed a distinct smell of sulphur on entering the building in the morning. The sulphur smell suggests a possible attempt to blow the lock.

One circumstance that might place at least some of the burglaries at a fairly early hour in the evening is the fact that a Maori, stranger to those present at the time, and with an injured hand roughly bound up with a handkerchief, sought to change a quantity of silver at Mr J. Hanwright’s billiard saloon shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday.