ESCAPE FROM PAPARUA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27680, 9 June 1955, Page 12

ESCAPE FROM PAPARUA

Man Recaptured At Cashmere

HACKSAW USED ON CELL BARS A man who escaped from Paparua Prison, where he was detained on remand, was recaptured at 7.35 p.m. yesterday after more than 13 hours’ liberty. He is Harrison Te Whiu, aged 25, of Auckland. Te Whiu was -on remand for sentence on several joint charges of breaking and entering and theft. He was to appear in the Magistrate’s Court today. He will now appear on a further charge brought under the Crimes Act of escaping from lawful custody. Te Whiu got out of his cell after cutting through two inch bars on the inside of the cell window between 9.15 p.m. on Tuesday and 6.30 a.m. yesterday. When the police were notified at 6.57 a.m. yesterday of his escape an island-wide search was immediately organised. The main roads north and south from Christchurch were patrolled .and all vehicles leaving the city were stopped. . Roads in the c’ty and suburban areas were patrolled throughout the day by uniformed police, detectives and officers of the Prisons Department. Several reports that a man answering Te Whiu’s description had been seen in Christchurch were investigated by the police during the day but these reports were unfounded.

At 7.35 p.m. Te Whiu was arrested at a house in Lowick avenue, Cashmere, by. Acting-Detective W. Bracks, assisted by ” Detective G. Gillies and Constable J. W. Jenkins. At the same time a man who occupies the house was arrested and he will be charged in the Magistrate’s Court this morning. The police believe that Te Whiu walked from the prison by a roundabout route to the house in Cashmere, a distance of more than 10 miles. When arrested he was wearing the same clothes, in which he escaped—a pinstripe blue suit. Te Whiu fcas a record of 10 convictions for housebreaking, unlawful conversion of cars, theft and ..breaking and entering. He has twice previously escaped from custody. On October 10. 1952, he escaped from a Borstal institution in the North Island, and on January 13, 1954, he escaped from Paparua Prison while serving a sentence. He was recaptured three days later. It is not yet known the source from which Te Whiu obtained the hacksaw and the instrument which he used to lever aside the bars of his cell. The superintendent of the prison (Mr R. Pearson) said yesterday that it would not nave been possible for him’ to have received the hacksaw from a visitor to the prison as after such visits prisoners were immediately searched. Nor would it have been possible for hinx to have secreted the instrument in his cell as the cells are searched each morning. Te Whiu’s cell was on the ground floor in the remand block on the west wing of the prison. When he escaped through the window he had no other obstacle to surmount.