AUCKLAND ESCAPEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 58, 9 March 1923, Page 4

AUCKLAND ESCAPEE.

SENTENCED AT SYDWET. CHRISTIE TO BE SENT BACK. '■ (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, Marek 3 Joseph Thomae Christie, alias WuTjm Af*xwel| Maxted.se.etated.tohavehS sentenced eighteen times in NewgeauS and .w,ce in Sydney and to have escape! from a. lunatic aeylum in Auckland*!* 1013, was sentenced at the Sydney Polic ywterday to six months? b^ C ' ,a,t?e ° f * ******* On the magistrate imposing the sentence, defendant said he ihad just finifihed one of two years and had a wife to support and a home to go to & asked if he could not be deported to New Zealand. The magistrate (Mr. Edwards) eiplained that the sentence was more or less formal and he would be eent'baefc as soon as arrangements could be made —probably within four or live 4*ys.

The Joseph Thomas Christie, who escaped from the Mental Hospital at Avondale in 1918, was known as a. particularly persistent and daring' criminal and ba4 spent almost the wljqle of h> time, from early boyhood either under ordered supervision in or in gaol. His numerous convictions included sentences for theft (he spccUluwd in bicycles and motor-bicycles), breaking and entering, forging and uttering and escaping from legal custody. His career of nuephief culminated in his being declared an habitual criminal and whilst in gaol 'here on the "last occasion he wan medically examined, pronounced *& he n.pt of rjgbt qiind, transferred tfl> the aeylum β-t Avondale. He 'eaeapfd almost immediately, was re-captured, and escaped again. On the second , «!<*', sien he got clear away aijd wae le«t heard of in Sydney, where he is said to have married. Christie -took chances wheq looking for liberty. On one oce*? sion, in his youth, lie made a sensational escape from custody by leaping from a, moving train when being escorted' from Dunrdin to the Borstal Institute at Iβvereargill. In the -cases of ordinary m«nt«l patients who escape from custody, if they are not recaptured within three months they are deemed to have Hwm legally discharged. But this, is not so in the case of "patients" transferred from prison. Those inmates are ■lii.bto to recapture at any time if they fcare not served the sentence impoeod upon them by the Court, and as Cbrieti* *V declared an habitual criminal, he is e+.fll under the jurisdiction of the priwn authorities. If he be identical with th» Christie referred to in our communication from Sydney, however, hra lunacy may be regarded as exceedingly doubtful, and it does not appear as ijf he will be returned to Avondale after h> arrivM here—or at leaet not -without the g»ol authorities and a magistrate being very well satisfied ttoat he has not "recovered."