ESCAPE FROM MT. EDEN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28528, 6 March 1958, Page 15

ESCAPE FROM MT. EDEN

Two Men Admit Several Charges

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) AUCKLAND, March 5.

Telling John Gordon Anthony Shanks, aged 29, a carpenter, and Frederick Helmer Johnson, aged 32. a workman, the two men who escaped from Auckland Prison last month, that they might be sent to the Supreme Court for sen tence, Mr J. W. Kealy, S.M., today remanded them a week after convicting them in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court of a series ol offences arising from their escape Shanks admitted a charge of escaping, three of theft, one of car conversion and joint charges of car conversion and attempted cai conversion. Johnson admitted escaping, two charges of conversion, one of theft, one of attempted car conversion, one of breaking and entering, one of converting a bicycle, and joint charges of car conversion and attempted conversion. The men were confined in the prison while awaiting Supreme Court sentences, the police prosecutor (Mr J. G. Rossiter) told the Court. They decided to escape and began loosening a bar of a cell window leading into the prison yard.

The series of offences began after they broke out of the prison at about 1.30 a.m. on February 11. Mr Rossiter said. Shanks was recaptured at Mangcre the next day and Johnson at Leamington on February 14. The men, who were triple handcuffed to a constable for today’s Court appearance, each had “a large criminal history,” he said.