Bandit Chase at 60 Miles an Hour

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 12

Bandit Chase at 60 Miles an Hour

Wild Rush Through London

Hotly pursued, and travelling at 60 miles an hour, motor-bandits broke through a police cordon at Bromley, causing the policemen to jump for their lives.

Just after 2 o’clock in the morning Mr. Edgar G. Peasley, the proprietor of the Polhill Arms, a picturesque little inn which overlooks the Kentish weald near Sevenoaks, was awakened by the sound of an iron bar being removed from his garage door.

Flinging open his window, Mr. Peasley saw r two men run out of the garage and join a third in a powerful blue touring car, which, as he raised the alarm, shot off at a high speed in the direction of London.

In bare feet and wearing only an overcoat over his night attire, Mr. Peasley gave chase in his six-cyllr.dei car. His son accompanied him on a powerful motor-cycle, and the drivei of a sports car which was passing at the time also joined the hunt.

Warned by telephone, the Knockholt police turned out on push-bicycles. At Bromley the police formed a cordon across the main road near the market place, signalling with their lamps to the driver to stop.

The car accelerated to a furious pace and drove straight at the police. “Ali we could do was to leap aside or we should have been run down,” said a policeman. One constable hurled a truncheon at the driver of the car, and it is thought that he must have hit somebody, for there was a shout, and one of the occupants was seen to fall back among the upholstery. At this spot the pursuing sports car still had the red tail lamp of the bandits’ car in view, but a few moments later it faded out of sight as the car shot down a side road in the direction of Beckenham.