STREET ROBBERY

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1932, Page 5

STREET ROBBERY

FROM P.O. OFFICIAL A STREET COUP. (Australian Press Association.) , SYDNEY, September 29. While Francis Seckoicl, Postmaster at the William Stret Post umce, was carrying a bag containing Loot), to a neignbouruig office ror tne payment ot ord age and invalid pensions, robbers secured tne money by an apparently carefully-arranged coup, SecKotd was accompanied by an assistant, Alfred Johnson, wno was armed. vVnen the pair had gone one hundred yards tmC'Ugn a crowded thoroughfare, two men, dressed in overalls, and pretending to be working as cleaners, threw the contents of a bucket of liquid in the postal men's faces. The postal men were blinded, and w'ere choking, apparently from fumes of some sort. Johnson was knocked down and disarmed. Then Eeckold was felled. His bag was seized, and the attackers made off. The man carrying the bag, however, collided with a motor-car, and fell to the ground, bub he recovered himself, and eroded his pursuers in the hurrying traffic. He rushed through a shop in a nearby street and then escaped in a car that was apparently waitiug in readiness for him, A similar robbery took place *■ last December, when the same officials were held up, pepper being thrown in their faces and nine hundred pounds taken after a shot was fired at Seckold- The robbers escaped and were never recaptured.

AN ARREST MADE. SYDNEY, September 30. The police made one arrest over the holdup. Postal officials also recovered thirty notes secreted in a bath heater.