POLICE RETAKE PRISONER

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27985, 4 June 1956, Page 10

POLICE RETAKE PRISONER

20 DAYS’ FREEDOM ENDED

HORTON CAPTURED IN CARAVAN

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 3.

Robert Alfred Horton’s 20-day break from custody ended at 7.05 p.m. on Saturday, when Detectives R. Silk and L. O'Shea found him asleep in a caravan on his family’s farm at Bombay. He offered no resistance to arrest.

Horton’s capture was the result of an intensified police hunt which only narrowly missed its quarry twice during the day. Undeterred by rain, police patrols scoured Auckland city and suburbs and formed road blocks on strategic highways. Horton was allowed to eat a meal, cooked by his mother in a nearby farmhouse, before he was taken, handcuffed t . between two detectives, to the central police station. Clean-shaven, but showing the effects of the chase and nights in the open, Horton was wearing an open-necked blue denim shirt, fawn gaberdine trousers, and down-at-heel shoes. The police hunt for Horton was intensified at 1.25 a.m. on Saturday, when a detective patrol at Papatoetoe found a grey and green car which was converted at Whakatane some days ago. The police were certain that Horton had left the car only a few minutes before they arrived. Police Reinforced A cordon was quickly put round the Papatoetoe-Manurewa district, and all available uniform and plainclothes policemen were rushed to the scene. By mid-morning, there were 16 patrol cars and more than 50 police officers and prison warders combing the area between Drury and Otahuhu. At 5.23 p.m., all available cars and men were ordered to communicate with Detective Silk at a rendezvous at the top of Bombay Hill. Detective Silk had received information that Horton might- be somewhere on a farm in the vicinity. While the main body of police waited well clear of the farm, and formed a net round the area. Detectives Silk and O’Shea crossed muddy fields to a caravan. Horton awoke to find his captors bending over the couch on which he had been resting. It was Horton’s second escape from custody. On November 30 last year, he made a break from the Auckland Magistrate’s Court at noon, but was seized by a man in Vulcan lane after a few minutes of freedom.