A SANDBAG ROBBERY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 263, 6 August 1915, Page 3

A SANDBAG ROBBERY.

AMERICAN CRIMINAL METHODS

IN ENGLAND

At the Central criminal Court, London, before Mr Justice Lawrence, duties Williams, C 4, bookkeeper,and Annie Ferguson, -10, pleaded "Guilty" to an indictment charging them (with

other persons unknown) with committing' a robbery with violence on Mr Wiadyslaw Gutowski and stealing from him 32 rings and other property. Mr Frampten, who prosecuted, said that the prosecutor was a Polish gentleman who carried on business as a manufacturing jeweller and diamond m.fjhant in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road. On February 19 at the request of the prisoners he took 323 (rings to an address at SavoyMansions. He was received by Ferguson, and handed her a .ring which she, had purchased at his shop earlier in the day. Ferguson said that sh e did not want to purchase anything else; then. As he turned to leave h e was struck on the oar from behind, his feet wer e knocked flrom under him, a man appeared on either side of him, he was knocked down and a towel thrown over his head, and his artificial teeth dragged from his mouth. His hands and feet wer e tied,, and he was lift unconscious. Later his groans attracted attention, and the police wer e called. It was then found that not only we ; re the prosecutor's 32 rings missing, but his watch and yhain, diamond pin, and purse wer ealso gone, th e total value being £1,550. The implement with which the assault on the prosecutor was committed was t of a novel design, consisting of a sandbagsuspended from a cord with loops so -:on'Hved that they could be converted into a pair of handcuffs for the victim cf the assault.

Detectiv e Inspector Ball said that in 1900 Williams was sentenced at the North London Sessions to four years' penal servitude for stealing banknotes from a lady depositor outside the Birkbeck Bank, a.nd was arrested after a desperate struggle. In 1890 Williams was sentenced at that Court to 18 months. In 1871 he was sentenced in Illinois to five years' imprisonment fcr conspiracy. On Williams' release* from the U\~m of four years' pena} servitude the witness took him to New York and handed him over to the \-merican pol \-& for an committed in Springfield, for which he was sentenced to three years' imprisr onment. He, escaped with two othejr men to New York, where, however, he was arrested. On Thanksgiving Day in America it was customary to give prisoners a certain' amount of liberty ird to fallow theiir friends to visit them. Two revolvers were brought in by >i.'Cind=. with whi<Vh Williams and nth>r men "held up" the warders and escaped. Williams was subsequently arrested in Paris.

Detective Sergeant Pearce said that in 1911 the female prisoner was sen-

tffif-d to five years for shop lifting. Rhe had in 1905 been sentenced. to threp. years for stealing a diamond necklace, value £2OOO from Messrs

Christie. SII3 was supposed to b e - the wif e .of a well known American bank thief named G'reason, and she was locked upon as one of the finest American thieves in England at the present day-

Mr Purc-ell, addressing i,h e Judge on behalf of th e prisoners, said it was quite true that th e woman's husband was a notorious criminal. She was

mal'ied to him, not knowing his character and career. She said that the marriage was th e cause of her downfall, as sh e became associated through her husband with dangerous criminals. The Judge said that if Williams were a young man, he (the Judge) should have passed upon him a shorter senter«3, carrying with it the infliction of corporal punishment. This sort of thing could not be tolerated in a civil-

ised country. He sentenced him to 12 years' penal servitude, and Ferguson to 10 years.