BRIEF FREEDOM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 199, 24 August 1942, Page 5

BRIEF FREEDOM

ESCAPEE CHARGED

■ KEANE PLEADS GUILTY

Clifford Douglas Keane, aged 28 the prisoner who escaped from a warder at the Supreme Court on Aug. 13. after he had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, only to be handed over to the police by a civiliar . minutes later, appeared in the ' olice Court this morning "usfodv "^ C ° cscapin S fr °m lawful

The evidence showed lhat Keane was sentenced by Mr. Justice Fair on 21 charges involving break in" and entering and theft from dweFlings. theft, receiving, forcerv ind uttering, false pretences and another of escaping from custody. While being taken to the prison van at the rear of the Supreme Court at 10 n a.m., Keane ran down the side of the van towards Eden Crescent and disappeared through a vacant sec-

Cecil Henry Granger, traveller employed by C. Aicken and Snn« Limited, said he saw Keane in the office of the secretary of the firm Witness was told been knocked from a motor-cycle bv a motor car which did not ?tnn that he had suffered severei™" slon Witness agreed to drive Keane to the Auckland Hospital. Keanl and another man had just entered witness' car at the side of the pre mises when a taxi driver came up and said. Von have an escaned prisoner. Take him to the poPice station Witness said he drove to the no ice station, where Keane was handed over to a constable. In answer to the magistrate, Mr J, H. Luxford. witness said Keane made.no demur on the way to the pol • "station. Neither did he astern to escape. Having pleaded guilty, Keane was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.

I think Mr. Granger and the taxi driver are to be congratulated on the prompt action they took," said Detective-Sergeant Trethewey who prosecuted. J ' u !u UX L ord ?S re ed and added spirit showed the proper public