ESCAPER REMANDED FOR SENTENCE

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32977, 25 July 1972, Page 11

ESCAPER REMANDED FOR SENTENCE

Mervyn Anthony Rich, aged 28, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday to a charge of escaping from lawful custody on July 18. Mr P. L. Molineaux, S.M,, retnapded him to the Supreme Court fpr sentence. On Friday afternoon Rich appeared after being caught in the morning in a house in Lyttelton Street and elected trial by jury. Yesterday he elected to be dealt with in the Magistrate’s Court.

He appeared in the dock handcuffed to a constable. Two dogs with their handlers were on guard at entrances to the court.

Sergeant C. T. Dalzell said that Rich appeared in the Supreme Court at 8.10 p.m. on July 18 to hear the jury’s verdict on charges of kidnap-

ping and aggravated assault. He pushed aside one of the prison officers escorting him and escaped from the building.

A large number of police searched for Rich, but it was not until Friday morning that he was found hiding beneath clothing in a boiler cupboard in a house in Lyttelton Street. Rich was taken to the Central Police Station, but he had nothing to say. The Magistrate said that in view of the circumstances he would decline to deal with the case summarily and would commit Rich to the Supreme Court for sentence. Rich and Ronald Anthony Dick, aged 29, a car cleaner, who was found guilty last week on a charge of aggravated assault, will appear in the Supreme Court this morning for sentence.