Claims Warrant Illegal

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30783, 22 June 1965, Page 3

Claims Warrant Illegal

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 21

A man who is alleged to have escaped from Waikune Prison, near National Park, appeared before Mr Justice Gresson and a jury in the Supreme Court today.

Keith Joseph Jensen pleaded not guilty to two charges, one of escaping from lawful custody and an alternative one of escaping from a penal institution. He is defending himself and Mr G. D. Speight appears for the Crown.

Mr Speight said Jensen was serving a sentence in Waikune Prison and on February 8 this year he escaped. A note was found addressed to the superintendent of the prison signed by Jensen in which reasons why he escaped were given.

The next morning a truck was stopped by a road block and Jensen was taken from the cab. He had gained a lift from the truck driver. When he was taken away by a constable, Jensen again gave the reasons why he escaped John Hobson, superintendent of Waikune Prison, said Jensen was serving a sentence of two years and nine months for breaking and entering and attempted indecent assault.

On February 8 he ordered a search for Jensen in and around the prison, between 7 and 7.30 p.m. until the police took over.

He was handed a note from Jensen which had been found in the prison mailbox. In it, Jensen said that he had escaped because he considered he had been convicted by fraud. He was sorry he had to do it, but said there was no other way to take action against the police. Opening his defence, Jensen said he was not seeking to prove his innocence on the previous convictions. What he was trying to do, he said, was to show that the warrant on which he had been sent to prison was the result of unlawful practice. He said the Supreme Court had been fraudulently converted by the police because they had refused him evidence on his own behalf. If that was true, he said, the warrant, although legal in itself, was unlawful.

Jensen said he would give evidence that he had been the subject of malicious prosecution and alleged that the police had withheld evidence at his trial. He said he would call at

least 10 witnesses on his own behalf. During the afternoon, Jensen called the chaplain at Auckland Prison, Mr L. W More, Mr C. M. Nicholson, Crown Prosecutor, DetectiveSergeant B. J. Stewart, Mr W. T. Rudman, registrar of Supreme Court, Auckland, Mr E. G Buckley, superintendent at Auckland Prison, Mr R. W Ross, a former detective, and Mr O. Power, retired assistant Commissioner of Police. The trial will be continued tomorrow.