ESCAPE FROM GAOL

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23248, 7 February 1941, Page 10

ESCAPE FROM GAOL

TRIAL OF FIVE PRISONERS EVIDENCE OF WARDERS (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, February 6. The trial of five prisoners whip were charged before Mr Justice Blair that on October 1 they escaped from the Auckland gaol by violent means, and thiit they rendered three warders incapable of resistance, was continued m th" Supreme Court to-day. The accused included John Henry Silva, against whom there had been a charge of the attempted murder of a warder, but on the suggestion of the Judge, the grand jury threw out the attempted murder charge. Silva pleaded guilty to the two remaining charges. The other accused. Allan Roy Dun, Bryan James O’Hehir, Randall Smith, and David Watson, pleaded not guilty. Duff was represented by counsel, Mr W. Noble. A prison warder, Arthur Burgess, described his movements on the evening of the escape, when he was assisting to marshal certain prisoners for physical drill. Witness went to a little table in the dome to mark off the prisoners' names. “I ticked off the names, and I am afraid that is about all I can say,” said the witness. ‘‘Everything went an absolute blank. I must have received a blow on the back of the head. I have a very hazy recollection of struggling with someone, and of being in a cell with Warder Scholium.” Another warder, Joseph Wenzl Scholium, said that after unlocking the prisoners in one of the wings he saw the warder, Burgess, lying on the floor of the dome with two prisoners bending over him. Coming to the grille, witness asked, “What is going on?”, and a prisoner replied, “He has fallen down.” Someone handed him a bunch of Burgess’s keys, an witness bent down to look at Burgess. He received a blow on the back of the head, and did not remember anything more until he found himself in . cell with Burgess. A third warder, Joseph Graydon Crawford, aged 62, who spoke with some difficulty, said he remembered going upstairs after letting one of the prisoners out, and then he was felled, and he remembered no more until he woke up in hospital five weeks later. At O’Hehir's request, the warders Burgess and Scholium were recalled, and both admitted that their attackers could have done then, more harm than they did. The case was adjourned.