Home-Made Cell Key Better Than Others

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30898, 3 November 1965, Page 3

Home-Made Cell Key Better Than Others

(N«u> Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Nov. 2.

A home-made key found after the Auckland prison fire riots of July 20 and 21 opened cell doors better than prison keys, a gaoler said in the Supreme Court today.

Daniel Huntwell Macmillan, aged 28, is accused of atempting by force to break a prison institution, discharging a firearm at a prison officer, and of assaulting two other officers. There are two alternative charges. Macmillan, who has pleaded not guilty on all counts, is represented by Mr P. A. Williams and Mr K. Ryan. Mr D. S. Morris appears for the Crown. The hearing is before Mr Justice Hardie Boys and a jury. Senior Prison Officer D. J. Gallagher said he found a home-made cell key buried three inches below asphalt near the prison bowling green. He found it opened cell doors in the north wing better than prison keys. “BANDIT KEY” “It was a real bandit key,” he said. A prison inmate, Donovan Ormsby, gave evidence of Binding a balaclava helmet in the prison yard. Prison Officer A. E. Southey said a balaclava was brought into the prison by a Mrs Western for Macmillan on June 29. No other balaclava had been taken in for at least two years. J. H. Bridgwater, prison plumbing instructor, identified a .22 revolver which he found in the north wing fully loaded. Detective-Inspector E. G.

Perry said he found among the accused's possessions a certificate for the purchase of the .22 revolver in Macmillan's former name—Western. This closed the Crown case. Mr Williams said the defence would be insanity. If a person was insane, it was proper that he should be in the appropriate place. He would call four doctors to say that Macmillan suffered from paranoia, or paranoia of a schizophrenic type. He had delusions and did not appreciate the wrongness of his acts. However, if the Crown case was not proved, Macmillan should be found not guilty, he said. CHANGED PERSON Called by the defence, Mrs Alice Blossom Allerton Western, mother of accused, told the Court how Macmillan changed into a suspicious and moody person to almost a person with a wildness in his manner. He could not be reasoned with at. all.

Witness toid Mr Williams that the balaclava she was shown as an exhibit was not the one which she had taken to the prison for Macmillan. Mrs Barbree Giunmer, a housewife, sister of the accused. said Macmillan became impossible to talk to and very, very secretive. Catherine Barbara Western, a housewife, toid the Court of a union she had formed with Macmillan. They bad had two children

She discussc' a change which came over Macmillan and the beliefs which he held. About mid-1964, witness said, she felt Macmillan needed psychiatric care. She knew he would not consent to this because of his attitude to the medical profession. Witness said he did not seem to be able to appreciate the position he was in in prison and what he would have to face. “His attitude was as though he had just missed a bus and was waiting at the bus stop for another,” she said.