Frightening Time

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30667, 5 February 1965, Page 1

Frightening Time

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 4. “I think they were more frightened than us,” said Barry Jamieson, aged 29, after he had been rescued from a 190minute ordeal when he was held at gunpoint by the three escapers from Mount Eden Prison.

“They seemed so afraid of being shot by the police,” he said. “They moved around on hands and knees.”

His 80-year-old mother, Mrs C. H. Jamieson, was also held as hostage when the men burst into her home at 33 Horoeka street, Mount Eden, But they released her in answer to pleas by the police. Mrs Jamieson was taken by police to a nearby house after she was released. She confessed that at first she could not understand what was happening when | the men burst in, but even when she realised who they were was not "really frightened.” “They seemed quite all right,” she said. “We weren’t harmed, but after sitting in

: that room for all that time with the door closed I felt a bit funny.” Mr Jamieson heard a crash 1 as a truck the men had converted was driven down the driveway alongside the house, ran through a full clothesline ’ and came to rest in the back . garden. “When I went to the door," : he said, “a man thrust a shot- ; gun at me. i “He said, Ttn Gillies’ and i then something tike ‘nobody ■ will get hurt if they do what • we say.’ “Then Wilder and Evans I came in with the warder. 1 t recognised those two also i from photographs I had seen.

"We all went back into the bedroom where my mother was getting dressed at the time.

‘They were quite sociable and we engaged in a bit of chit-chat.

‘They asked me for liquor, but there was none in the house, so I made them a cup of tea.

“For much of the time they talked about how they would escape the police cordon. “All the conversation seemed gangsterish, with phrases like ‘don’t try anything,’ being used. “At first they were determined to sit it out until dark. Finally, they began to say things like, ‘I can’t see any way out of this.’ and ‘Any Ideas on what we can do now.’"