WOULD NOT PLEAD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1945, Page 6

WOULD NOT PLEAD

PASSIVE PRISONER

CHARGES OF ESCAPING

John Charles Bailey, aged 33, who had had unusual in and out experiences since his sentence early in 1943 under the National Service Regulations to confinement in a detention camp, stood trial to-day before Mr. Justice Fair and a jury on two charges of escaping from custody. He was charged with being deemed to be a rogue and vagabond in that, in September, 1943, he escaped from lawful custody in Napier gaol, and also that, in March, 1944, he escaped from lawful custody when being taken from Wellington to Napier. "I do not plead," declared Bailey when asked whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty, and his Honor directed that this be entered as a plea of not guilty. Mr. G. S. R. Meredith, for the Crown, said Bailey was sentenced under the National Service Regulations to a detention camp, and for a breach of regulations was transferred to Hautu prison camp, and subsequently to Wellington, Wanganui and Napier prisons. Evidence would show that in September, 1943, accused slipped away from a bathroom in Napier prison, and after his recapture some months later in Wellington he dodged away on the Palmerston North railway station from a constable who was escorting him back to Napier. That was in March, 1944, and it was not till six months later he was recaptured on the Auckland waterfront. (Proceeding.)