Robbery Attempt Admitted

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 18

Robbery Attempt Admitted

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN, June 8. Two young men and a girl, at St Luke’s Hospital for the aged on Monday night, pleaded guilty when they appeared before Mr J. D. Murray, S.M., today.

Linda Fay Whittaker, aged 17, a nurse aide at St. Luke's. Frederick John Moreland, aged 22, a workman, and Colin Graham Helson, aged 20, unemployed, were each remanded in custody until June 16 for sentence.

Chief Detective J. Marshall said an emergency telephone call had been answered by uniformed police and detectives at 10.10 p.m. They were told that 20 minutes earlier two men, with nylon stockings pulled over their faces, came to the hospital’s side entrance and were admitted by Whittaker. -Whittaker alleged she bad been forced at knife point to the matron’s room where one of the men tied the matron, Sister E. M. Clark, to a chair and taped her mouth with sticking plaster.

Whittaker claimed she had been forced to take the other man to where the office safe was located near the front door. This man was in the act of sorting through envel-

opes and papers when the duty sister appeared. She was seized and slapped across the mouth. She retaliated and a scuffle ensued. The two men then escaped. Whittaker later admitted to the police that her previous statements were false. Helson and Moreland were located and the three were arrested.

Whittaker told the police that she and the two men had been together, discussing how the hospital safe could be stolen. They went to look at the safe and decided against removing it because it was too large. Whittaker then gave the men the key of the main entrance to the hospital and nylon stockings to use as a disguise.