SYDNEY CRIME

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 259, 24 June 1932, Page 8

SYDNEY CRIME

GANGS OF MASKED MEN COMMIT ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE. BAG-SNATCHING PREVALENT. Numerous cases of robbery, some of them accompanied by violence, have been reported in Sydney recently. Maslced men have figured in several cases, and there has been a veritable epidemie of bag-snatcliing. Members of the Newtown police are investigating a robbery wbich was committed by niasked and presumably armed men in Rawson Street Newtown, recently. Mr. Herbert Pendelbury reported that he was entering his home with his wife, after baving been to the pictures, when he met a thief, whose face was partly covered by black cloth. A second man appeared, who was armed with what appeared to be a revolver. He struck Mrs. Pendelbury, and robbed her of a bag, containing about £1. Both men ran into the street. Mr. Pendelbury was chasing them, when a third man ran beside him and hit him in the face. Detectives found that the thieves had entered the house through a hack window. Assailant Apologises. Miss Fifi Hamilton-Cobley, aged 25, of Beach Road, Edgecliff, was attacked by a masked man who entered her home early on a recent morning. The man entered the bedroom in which the woman was sleeping through a window. According to the story she told the police, she stirred in hed, and he struck her on the head with a piece of iron. She rolled to the floor. The man apparently only then realised that he had attacked a woman. "I'm sorry," he said. "I did not know you were a woman." "Take my money and go," she re^ plied. The man refused to take the money and left hy the window. The woman was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital hy the. Central District Ambulanc© and treated for cuts on the head. Robert McArthur, of Wellbank Street, Concord, was assaulted and robbed on Central railway station early on the morning of May 22. He told' the Regent Street police that he was suddenly set upon by five men and tv/o women, who beat him until he was helpless to prevent them from searching his pockets and taking a wallet containing £5 and a cheque. McArthur was left injured and dazed. Doctors at Sydney Hospital treated him for a broken nose and probably a fracture of the jaw. Menace to Women. The sneak-thieves who roh women walking along ill-lit or lonely roads are increasing in number, and have become a menace to women in the subui'bs. On one night recently ten women were robbed of their handhags, and amounts ranging from a few shillings to money and jewellery valued at £25 were stolen. The police believe that organised gangs of men are operating, and are convinced that the night's thefts were the work of three separate hodies of malefactors. Every effort is heing made hy detectives to apprehend the men. In several cases the thieves struck their vietims. In every case the bag-snatchers employed stolen motor cars to provide a quick means of escape. Three cars were stolen from the city and employed on the work. The men drove up slowly behind unescorted women, one of their number leaped from the car, snatched the bag, jumped back into the vehicle, and was driven off.