BRUTAL ASSAULT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 311, 28 June 1912, Page 5

BRUTAL ASSAULT

A jCLOSE CALL.

vicious attack; on an Auckland SHOPKEEPER. assailant gets away. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, June 25. While Auckland lias during the last few weeks been the scene of some thirty burglaries, last evening was the lirst time that any actual violence has been used. The scene Of the affair was at Epsom. Directly opposite the tram depot is a stationer's shop and billiard saloon, owned by Mr. A. J. Roberts. The shop and saloon front the road, while the dwelling is at the back, some twenty or thirty yards away. .As iisur.l. Mr. Roberts closed down at II o'clock last night, and spent about half an hour brushing down the billiard taldes and putting the place in order, lie then locked up the business portion of the premises and proceeded towards the dwelling at the back. An asphalt path connects the two, and midway there is an outhouse. Here the path is narrow, and the passer has perforce to walk close to the small building. Tt WAs behind this structure that Mr. Roberts's assailant lay in wait for him. I !

Mr. Roberts suddenly realised' that there was someone hidden there. Before he hud time to spring back] however, be received a crushing blow on the head, which sent him reeling to the ground, llis assailant stood over him and aimed another blow at. his head. Mr. Roberts, who is an ex-policeman, instinctively grappled with his man. Dizzy and half senseless, he entered upon an utterly unequal struggle. Ilis cries for assistance were heard by Detective Sweeney and several plainclothes constables who were standing on the -street corner sixty yards away. They came speedily to lvis assistance, but in the meantime the man had managed to clear the high stone wall which surrounds the place, and made good his escape through an adjoining property. The police officials, on arrival, found Roberts lying in semi-conscious condition on the ground. The assistance of a doctor was summoned, and some half a dozen stitches had to be inserted into a wound across the top of the skull on the left-band side. Had the blow caught Roberts two inches lower down, it is the doctor's opinion that he would probably have been killed.