BANK WINDOW SMASHED

Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 5

BANK WINDOW SMASHED

MAN’S REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR. AUCKLAND, June 24. A man deliberately threw a stone through one of the front windows of the Bank of New Zealand at 8 o’clock thia morning, and after waiting for developments, wandered off. He later got on a tramcar and was pointed out to a constable, who arrested him. At the moment the window was broken several people were alighting from a tram at the safety zone in front of the bank. Several of them saw the man take the missile from a kit bag and hurl it at the bank window. It rebounded on to the footpath. The man selected another missile from his ba» and had another shot, and the crash of shattering glass was the result. The man coolly/stood for a few minutes and was an object both of curiosity and amusement. He walked slowly across Queen street, surveyed the contents of a pork butcher’s window, and then made his way to the tram zone further down the street. It was some time after the breaking of the window before anyone appeared from the inside of the bank, and by that time ' the man who had broken the window had gone. Later in the morning George Airston Esther, described as a local body officer, aged 62. limped into the Police Court on crutches to answer a charge of committing mischief by wilfully damaging a window valued at £6 15s, the property of the Bank of New Zealand. _ Detective Sergeant Kelly asked Mr F. K. Hunt. S.M., to remand Esther for a week. " I don’t think he is quite right,” said Mr Kelly. The accused was remanded for a week for medical observation.