SAFE BLOWING

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXII, Issue 22, 21 February 1927, Page 2

SAFE BLOWING

■. . ■ THREE BROTHERS ON TRIAL. ONE TELLS WHOLE STORY. PALMERSTON N., Feb, 19. Three brothers, Albert George WindFrcdcrick Joseph Windsor, who were their initial trial in respect to offences remanded on Tuesday on a scries of serious charges, involving breaking, entering and theft, paid the penalty at the Magistrate’s Court on Friday, for making a determined bid for liberty and assault on a police officer. After being sentenced to substantial terms of imprisonment, for their indiscretions in this connection, they stood at their initial trial in r espect to offences alleged to have been coipmitted at Otaki at the end of January last. The hearing of the case extended over the whole day, and further charges will be preferred against the trio , this morning at nine o’clock.

The most sensational part of the trial was the statement made by one of the accused, and tendered as evidence for the prosecution late in the day, in which he is alleged to have made admissions relative to several crimes committed in the district surrounding Manakau. Amongst the many exhibits set out for inspection were a black satin mask, a, toy revolver, several electric torches, a quantity of gelignite and tobacco and other articles, which were recovered by police constables, who related how they had watched Albert and . George Windsor walk-: ing along the railway line at Manakau on February 4 and had seen them concealing a parcel and a tin containing the above mentioned articles amongst ferns at the back.-of a certain house. Both brothers subsequently disappeared. “I WISH TO TELL THE TRUTH” “T wish to tell the truth about the safe at- Levin being blown open,” stated the accused, Albert Windsor, in the opening paragraph, and added:.

“I have a house at Manakau, and at about 10 pan. on Sunday, January 30 last, my two brothers asked me and my wife, my mother and my sister to go for a run in my motor car to Levin, to look for a house. I did so and arriving at Levin at 10.45 p.m., my brothers —Lawrence and Joseph asked me to pull up at the Post Office. They got out of the car at this point, and told me they w’ere going to blow a safe at the railway station. They asked me to stay in the car with the 'men and keep the engine running, in order to be ready to get away when they did the job. I advised them not to do it/’ he went on, “but they said they were going to carry the job through, and went away.” The accused further explained that he heard an explosion a few minutes later and this ■heralded the return shortly afterwards of his brothers, who told the company that they had blown the safe. They then journeyed to Linton, and .from there proceeded to Otaki, where they arrived, at about 4 a.m. MONEY BLOWN TO PIECES. .. My brothers remarked, when they returned to the car at Levin, after blowing the safe, that they had blown the money to pieces. On arrival at Otaki they asked me to pull up in front of the dairy factory, and stand by the car, and they would not be long. We saw them burst open the front door of the office and go inside, _where they remained for about -ten minutes.” ’ Continuing, the accused pointed out, it was alleged, that -from Otaki they went to Manakau, where they arrived at 6 a.m. His brothers went outside in order to hide what they had got. They had their pockets bulging out with the stuff that they had got at the railway station' at Levin and the Otaki Dairy Company. They did not show' him or the others what they had got. On January 31st his brothers told him that they had gone to Pahiatua some days previously, when he was at Te Awamutu, and bought some gelignite and caps from a -shop there. On the same day they left for Pahiatua at 4.30, and arrived there at 8.30 p.m. At one o’clock in the morning he pulled up in his car outside the Pahiatua Railway Station, where his brothers got out of the car, on the pretext that they desired to use the conveniences. They went away carrying a bag with them, and ’saying that they would not be long. A. few minutes later he heard a terrific explosion, and when his brothers returned again they informed him that they had blown the safe. TWISTED NOTES-AND SILVER. They had- a .cash-box with them and also some twisted silver and torn notes. Witness, after telling them that they would have to stop their safe-

blowing, proceeded back to Manawatu. In conclusion, he stated that it was his brothers’ intention to blow up the Lower Hutt theatre safe, but he knew nothing of the affair concerning the Day ’s Bay safe being blown-up.