ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29651, 23 October 1961, Page 10

ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE

Australian Criminal (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 22. An attempt by an Australian criminal to escape from Auckland prison early on Saturday morning was thwarted by a prison officer making a round of the cells. Later the same day, the prisoner, Maurice James Watson, aged 34, a workman, left by air with Senior Detective A. W. Snell, of the Victorian police, for Melbourne to face a charge of escaring from lawful custody there. The prison super’ itendent (Mr 11. V. Haywood) said tonight that Watson was cutting through the bars around the window, of his second-floor cell with a specially-pre-pared table knife when discovered. “We just might have lost him if we had not been on the alert, but it would not have been that easy for him,” said Mr Haywood. “He would have had to pass other officers at the front gate.” tson was arrested at the Waipa State Mill, Rotorua, earlier this month. He escaped from Pentridge Gaol. Melbourne, last January while serving a sentence for demanding money with menaces. When recaptured, he was sentenced to three years’ gaol for escaping and on the day of his appeal escaped from the Melbourne Supreme Court. <