ARMED ROBBERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 August 1938, Page 5

ARMED ROBBERY

HOLD=UP AT AUCKLAND TAXI STATION MAN ARRESTED AND CHARGED IN SYDNEY WOMAN COMPANION GRANTED BAIL By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. SYDNEY, August 15. At the city police court today Arthur Stickings, alias Peter Fisher, aged 31, was charged with having at Auckland on August 8, while armed with a shotgun, robbed Frank Pickering of £219 9s, the property of the Atta Taxi Company, Limited. Fisher was further charged with having in his possession £ll 4s 9d, reasonably suspected to have been stolen, also with being a prohibited immigrant. The police prosecutor, Sergeant Magnay, asked the magistrate to refuse bail. He added that Fisher allegedly left New Zealand with a woman who was in his company when arrested yesterday. Fisher was remanded till August 29. Bail was refused. At a later stage Florence Stewart, aged 22, waitress, was charged with having goods in her custody reasonably suspected of having been stolen. The police prosecutor said that she arrived from New Zealand on Satur- ‘ day with the man earlier charged with a serious offence. The solicitor, Mr J. Meagher, interposed and said that Stewart was really the victim of circumstances. She had never previously'been in trouble. She was remanded till August 29. Bail of £lO was allowed.

A message received from Sydney yesterday stated that a man and a woman, recently arrived from New Zealand, had been arrested late that afternoon on a charge- of having in their custody certain goods reasonably suspected of having been stolen. It was reported from Auckland on August 9 that two masked men, one of whom was said to have been armed with a sawn-off shotgun, held up the night attendant of the Atta Taxi Company’s service station on. the Grafton side of Upper Queen Street at about 3.45 a.m., and robbed the office safe of about £220 in cash. It was stated that they then walked out of the station and ran away with the • money in a sugar sack. The attendant, Mr Frank Pickering, Newton, was not injured. Immediately the two men had gone he communicated with the police, and with the managed of the taxi company, Mr F. Drumm. Both men, said Mr Pickering, wore black masks which came from under chins. He could see only their eyes, their hats and extended to below their One of them had a sawn-off shotgun and the other carried a long piece of lead piping.