PRISON ESCAPEES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 308, 5 October 1940, Page 2

PRISON ESCAPEES

STOLEN MOTOR-CAR FOUND. SMALL BOY SEES WANTED MEN. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, October 4. An observant young woman who saw an abandoned Morris car about a mile from Silverdale to-day, and reports of thefts of petrol and clothing from two places at Massey, during Thursday night, gave the police, a fresh trail of the four men who escaped from the Auckland prison on Tuesday night. Motor patrols and search parties have since been ranging far and wide. The car was stolen from Mr A. M. Jackson’s garage at Orakei Aoad, Remu era, early on Thursday morning, and had evidently travelled over rough territory. When Mr Jackson saw his car at the Central Police Station this afternoon he found the panels badly scratched as though it had been forced through scrub country. The exhaust pipe was bent and the under-carriage was coated with mud. The petrol tank was dry. On the flooring of the car were several sets of muddy footprints. A seven-year-old schoolboy. John Small, who lives on the Dairy FlatSilverdale road, about two miles south of Silverdale, said that while he was on his way to school about S' o’clock on Thursday morning he noticed three men get out of a small motor-car and look underneath a concrete bridge just before the by-pass to Kaukapakapa. He said they then looked into some scrub at the roadside, got into the car, and drove down the by-pass. He was (pdte sure, he said, there were only three men in the car, one in the driving seat and two others in the back seat. He saw sufficient of -the driver’s face to describe him.

The boy told his mother about the incident when he reached home that afternoon, but she attached little significance to it until this morning. The boy’s father later heard that Jackson’s car had been stolen, and he advised the police. An Alert Observer. Just before mid-day a young woman living on a farm along the Kaukapakapa road saw a small car abandoned at the roadside about 50 yards from the main road. One door was wide open as though someone had left hurriedly. When she reached Silverdale shortly afterwards she and a friend discussed the matter, and she copied from a newspaper the number of Mr Jackson’s missing car. She returned to the spot where she saw the car, and found it had two number plates screwed together on the back and one at the front. The front one corresponded with the number she had copied. She turned the screws on the back bracket, lifted the top plate,. and found that the lower one also corresponded with that of the missing car. She notified the policei shortly afterwards. There is very little change in the condition of the three warders who were assaulted and injured at the Auckland prison on Tuesday night. J. G. Crawford, aged 62, who, was severely injured about the head, was reported by the Auckland Hospital to be still unconscious. The condition of J. W. Scholium, aged 32, and A. Burgess, aged 43, both of whom had slight concussion and scalp wounds, was reported to be satisfactory.