ATTEMPTED HOLD-UPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1942, Page 4

ATTEMPTED HOLD-UPS

REPORTED IN CHRISTCHURCH MAN WITH PISTOL RUNS FROM SHOP. SOME JEWELLERY STOLEN FROM HOUSE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Two hold-ups with a revolver were carried out in Christchurch on Friday evening. Detectives are investigating, but no arrest has yet been made. Mrs J. H. Taylor, who, in the absence of her husband on military service, runs a grocery and confectionery shop at the corner of Simeon Street and Athelstan Street, Spreydon, was one of the victims. At about 8.35 p.m. on Friday, she served two customers and then' went to sweep out the grocery section of her shop. She heard footsteps and then heard someone say “Money.” She looked up to see a young man with a long-barrelled revolver in his hand and a black handkerchief with white spots over his face. He said again determinedly “Money!” and prodded her in the chest with the revolver, his finger on the trigger. Mrs Taylor was frightened, but calm. She stepped back and the man came forward and edged her to a corner. The man stood there, his revolver pressed into her chest. Mrs Taylor tried to reason with him and then said her husband was in the kitchen. Mrs Taylor called out, fairly loudly: “Bert! Bert!” (her husband’s name). A girl at the back of the shop, hearing the call, opened a door. The man, alarmed at the movement, hit Mrs Taylor hard on her fingers with the revolver and ran from the shop. The second hold-up on Friday evening was at the home, at 9 Bealey Street. St. Albans', of a family named Stewart. A daughter, a schoolgirl, went into a room and turned on a light, to see standing there a young man, who, she said, had a revolver. He made off, taking with him some jewellery which he had stolen from the house. There was no violence.