ARMED ROBBERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1938, Page 8

ARMED ROBBERS

SENTENCES OF HARD LABOUR IN AUCKLAND RAID ON TAXI SERVICE STATION OBSERVATIONS BY JUDGE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. > Two men who were concerned in | the Atta Taxi Service Station robbery! on August 8, Arthur Stickings, aged 30, . and Harold Last Gray, aged 49, weresentenced by Mr Justice Fair in the! Supreme Court today to terms of hard! labour, Stickings for four years and: Gray to three years. ; His Honour said the prisoners must: be sentenced to a substantial term of imprisonment. They had deliberately' made preparation for the crime, and even if the gun were not loaded, they had a length of lead piping, which in some circumstances was as deadly as a revolver, and a silent weapon, which they might be tempted to use in certain circumstances. He did not deem it necessary to order a flogging. Counsel pointed out that Stickings had made an arrangement' for full restitution to the Atta Company.

When he answered a knock on the door at the office of the Atta Service; Station, Auckland, at 3.45 a.m. on Aug-: ust 8 last, an attendant, Frank Pick-j ering, was confronted by two masked men. Pickering stated that he was threatened by the men, one of whom was armed with a sawn-off shot gun. and the other was holding a piece of lead piping in a menacing manner. Securing the keys of the safe from the cash register, one of the robbers, Pickering stated, opened the safe and took from it £219 in cash while the other i covered Pickering with the shot gun, making him keep his arms up.