A MODERN DICK TURPIN

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 313, 25 September 1917, Page 1

A MODERN DICK TURPIN

Exciting Police Chase. HORSE v. MOTOR CAR Visions of the days of Dick Turpin were recalled last Friday in the Bombay district when there was a police bunt along the Great South road and adjoining roads for a man "wanted" for alleged horse-stea'ing at Drury. Driving out from Pukekohe towards Bombay Sergt. Cowan and Constable Thornell came across their quarry mounted on a horse, but the man refused to halt and digging his spurs into his steed made off posthaste along the road and outdistanc-

Ed his pursuers. In the hilly country surround ing Bombay and amid numerous side roads the horseman made good his escape for the tfme being, active search by Sergt. Cowan and Constable Thornell, reinforced by Constables Taylor (Tuakau) and Horau (Mercer) all by now on horseback, at first proving fruitless. A motor car was telephoned for to Pukekohe by Sergt. Cowan, and on the Great South road beinq; scoured the man was traced to Harrisville, from which settlement, by a byroad, he made his way back to Bombay. Thither the Sergeant also proceeded in the car, hot on the trail of the hunted one, and just as the car reached the cross roads at Bombay the fugitive was spotted disappearing over the summit of Bombay Hill in the direction of Paparata. Then a ding-dong race ensued and on the motor beating the hoise for pace Sergt. Cowan stopped the car and called on the man to surrender, at the same time attempting to catch the horse's bridle. "Dick Turpin," however, cleverly eluded the Sergeant's giasp end striking him with his whip gallopped of! at a break neck pace. The motor car was restarted and a desperate race ensued for about a mile. With the end of metalled roads being approached there was every possibility of "Dick Turpin" making good his escape into ihe back-blocks, so the Sergeant determined to risk the experiment of "cannoning" the motor car on to the horse. A suitable opportunity for this offered when the car was running side by side with the horse with a high bank on the side of the road The driver, Mr S. Loughrin, employed by Messrs Gallagher and Howe, so skilfully manoeuvred his conveyance that the horse was struck by the car with ju-t suffioient force ip send it sprawling on to the roadside bank and sia ultnneously Sergt. Cowan, from his seat in the motor car, deftly caught hold of the rider and secured him. The arrested one was then conveyed to Pukekohe police station Brought up at the Pukekohe Police Couit on Saturday morning, the accused, whose name is Robert Brydon, alias Woodward, aged 29, and who hails from Dargaville, was charged with having at Drury, on Wednesday last stolen a horse, valued £25, the property of Mr Wm Chas. Waugh, proprietor of the Drury Hotel. He was remanded to appear in Auckland on Thursday i next when he will be again remanded to be brought up at the Papakura i Magistrate's Court next Monday. Other charges, it is understood, will i also be laid. i

The circumstances of the case are that the accused hired the horse from Mr Waugh and then rode to Hunua where he sold the animal to a local farmer, taking in part exchange an inferior horse. He made his way to Bombay, where he stopped on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday he started off for Pukehohe prior to being' hunted." During his bid for freedom, after being first met by the police, he rode to Harrisville, where he left the horse he had secured at Hunua as that animal was fast tiring. On the plea that his wife was seriously ill and that he was engaged on the errand of going for a doctor he borrowed another horse from a local farmer, so that being on a "fresh" mount he was able to expedite his movements and he next made his way back, as already stated, to Bombay. The accused, it is interesting to mention, made a sensational dash for freedom two or three years ago near Mount Eden station whilst being taken from Helensville to Mount Eden gaol but an athletic constable, who had charge of him, proved the victor in a long race and he w as soon re captured.