Tween's Disappearance Mystifies Police

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30481, 1 July 1964, Page 1

Tween ' s Disappearance Mystifies Police

The disappearance of the Australian criminal, Neville Brian Tween, aged 23, after his escape from Paparua on June 2, has . die police mystified.

“He-appears to have ! aded into oblivion,” said Chief Superintendent G. C. Urquhart yesterday. “He could possibly be in or near Christchurch, although the public has been most co-operative in the search for him.”

A routine watch, mostly at rports and seaports, was ill being kept. “For all we now, he may already be out f the country,” Mr Urquhart aid. “There are several ways n which this could have ieen done.”

It had been fairly well established that Tween -hanged a £5O note in a Lin:oln road shop the evening ifter he escaped. “It is a fair assumption chat he must have made some contacts almost as soon as he got out of prison. He was in a strange town in a strange country. “The banknote was traced back so far, then the trail came to a dead-end. We have no knowledge of any particular person helping Tween. Reports are still coming in

and one might be the one we are after. It is very hard to predict what such an escaper would do,” said Mr Urquhart.

Tween was serving a fiveyear Sentence for his part in the £5500 robbery at the Foodtown Supermarket, Papakura, in October, 1962. In the last 10 years, although there have been quite a number of escapes from Paparua Prison, a medium security gaol, only two have managed to evade recapture.

Walter James Steel, a safe blower, escaped on January 10, 1955. He was serving a three-year term for breaking open the safe in the Riccarton Borough Council office. He was sentenced on December 3, 1954, and had been in prison only five weeks of his term. Steel is known by the police to have got to Australia. He- was a Scotsman, married with a family. There was no concerted effort by the authorities to have him picked tip and brought back to New Zealand under an extradition warrant to be charged with escaping, and to finish his sentence. The other successful escaper is still being sought by the police. He is James Williamson, a Scotsman,

single, who was sentenced to four years' gaol after stabbing a man in an affray in a Wellington back street Williamson w s charged with attempted murder. He was found guilty of wounding with intent.

Williamson was sentenced on May 3, 1954. He escaped, with two others, from Paparua Prison on March 17, 1955. The other two prisoners were recaptured near Christchurch. Williamson has not come to the attention of the police since, although at one stage it was thought he was in Melbourne.

“Williamson is wanted by the police in New Zealand, and will be wanted for 20 years and more. It was a bad case of violence. “If Steel ever turned up in New Zealand again he would be charged with escaping," Mr Urquhart said. It is possible that the police and Justice Department would seek to extradite Tween if he were found in Australia. The search for Tween has already cost a considerable amount of money, and extradition would cost the taxpayers more. Against this, however, must be balanced the deterrent effect on other prisoners. Tween had served only a very short period of a five-year prison term.