Prisoner escapes after hitting warder

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 1

Prisoner escapes after hitting warder

A prison officer at Paparua Prison was hit over the head with a pick handle or stone by a prisoner who then escaped yesterday afternoon.

After hitting the officer at afternoon “smoko” the prisoner ran off, probably out of the main gate.

It is thought that the prisoner might then have been picked up on the main road by accomplices. A grey

battered Ford Customline car was seen just before the break.

Later the occupants of this car were questioned by detectives, but released as having no connection with the matter.

Meanwhile, the prison officer, Roger Christopher Jones, aged 36, bleeding from a cut to the head which later required 14 stitches, managed to get the other eight prisoners in the party together and back to a farm building where the alarm was raised. Car conversion The missing prisoner is Robin Michael Sutherland, a Maori, aged 22 years, who was serving an 18-month sentence for car conversion. He was due for release next April. The prison superintendent (Mr J. O. Cruse) said the attack came when the men were having a break about 3.10 p.m. from digging an offal pit at the prison’s poultry farm. “Evidently two prisoners got up and walked about—one can only to say to divert the officer’s attention —and while they were doing this the officer was hit on the back of the head,” said Mr Cruse. No intervention “It is not clear yet whether the prisoner hit him with a pick handle or a stone. “The officer attempted to defend himself and the fellow took off.” None of the other prisoners either defended or attacked the officer, said Mr Cruse. “They have their sort of code and if they intervened they would, of course, be ostracised.” After the attack, Mr Jones got another prisoner passing on a tractor to raise the alarm at the institution and then took his prisoners to the poultry farm. He was treated by a prison medical orderly and taken by car to Christchurch Hospital. He was later sent home and will have three days off to recover from his injuries. Prison officers and police searched around the area intensively but found no sign of the man. A dog scent petered out across the West Coast Road. 'Sutherland, who has four convictions for car conversion, four for burglary and one for theft, had no record of violence and was not regarded as a security risk. Outside work If he had been a security risk he would not have been in the field, said Mr Cruse. Sutherland began his sentence in Wellington m

February and had been at Paparua since April. The escape occurred when about 100 prisoners were working outside at the prison.

Mr Cruse said: "We could keep the prisoners locked inside all the time but what would society say then? They would call us inhuman beasts.” Medium build The prisoner left behind his boots and tweed jacket when he ran off. He was wearing a khaki shirt and blue denim trousers. He is of medium build.