RACEGOER ROBBED

Hokitika Guardian, 30 April 1930, Page 2

RACEGOER ROBBED

ASSAULT IN MOTOR-CAR

FATEFUL MEETING NEAR TUT ALLS ATOR.

AUCKLAND, April 23

i After being the victim of a cowardly assault in a motor-car in Commerce St., on Saturday evening, an elderly man residing at Papatoetoe was robbed of £4 in banknotes by a young man. The assault occurred following a short conversation between the two men, who met in Customs Street about 6.30. Both were quite sober and there is no suggestion that the affair was the outcome of a drunken brawl.

“I suppose it serves me right,” said the mail who was robbed, when seen by a correspondent of the “Times,” today. He said .Jie was sixtv-eight years of age and had attended the Avondale races on Saturday.

“Just before the big rare on my way to the totalisator I was making up my mind wluit I would back,” lie sab..

was murmuring to myself ‘No 1 looks good.’ Just then a man alongside me, who had evidently heard me. said, ‘Yes. I think that will run well.’ That man was the same man that assaulted and robbed'me in the car. 1 did not see him at the races again, but shortly after six o’clock on Saturuay night, I alighted from a bus near the intersection of Queen and Customs Streets and was walking oyer to Commerce Street to catch my bus to Papatoetoe When the same man approached me. ‘How did you get on?’ was hi first question. “Oil, I dropped a couple of quid, as usual,” I told him. Pie then said) ‘I won about £33, so J u.j ail right. AVhere are you going to?’ he then asked me. I told him 1 was waiting for a Papatoeitoe bus, whereupon the stranger said he had lr’s car and Would drive me home, as he was going near Papatoetoe.”..

The old man said lie agreed to accept a lift-and wjilked further along the street, /.which was full of par'-. mo-toO-cnirs.- ’“Tlitst pile’s mine,” the stranger said to fipW walking towards a car and opening tile door. “Jump iii,’’ was his next: remark) “I got in the car,” said the Papatoetoe resident,’’ and then lie gct.iii. He said he desired ;to get a bottle of whisky before he went home and asked me if I could change, a fiver. I put my hand in by right-luind trouser pocket and brought out four £1 notes. I put them back again, and, as I was about to put my hand ip my other pocket, which contained a larger roll, the man struck me a heavy; blow on the face, inserted his hand in my right hand pocket, grabbed the notes and ran away from the car. I followed him as quickly as I could, but lost him near the Waverley Hotel. Jt might have been a lot worse, all the same,” added the old man, “ if he had taken what was in the other pocket. As it is 1 have lost four notes and am left with a good black eye.” He said there was no one about Commerce Street at the time.