Young woman helped detention escapers

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 5

Young woman helped detention escapers

■ A young woman was found guilty in the District Court yesterday of helping two escaped detention centre inmates avoid arrest or conviction.

Cheri Kim Blackburn, aged 19, an unemployment beneficiary, who pleaded not guilty, was sentenced to 12 months probation and 50 hours community work by Judge Paterson. Sergeant A. R. Bleakley told the Gourt that on May 3 Warren John Marks and Peter Daniel Lumby escaped from Rolleston Detention Centre and went to Blackburn’s flat in Christchurch. Marks said that after escaping from Rolleston he

and Lumby slept for some time in a Christchurch cemetery. At about 2 a.m. they went to Blackburn’s flat. ■ Marks said that he had known the defendant well for some time. He said that he told Blackburn that they had escaped from the centre, but that she did not seem to believe him.

The defendant made coffee and went back to bed. Lumby and himself went to sleep on the couch and floor, Marks said. The defendant had left the flat before they woke, he said. Marks told the Court tnat

he then went to a public telephone and telephoned a friend who came and picked them up in a car.

Lumby told the Court that they were wearing prison clothes when they arrived at Blackburn’s flat.

. Sergeant C. J. Cole said that when he interviewed the defendant she admitted noticing that the escapees were wearing baggy jeans and had short hair. She told him that they had asked to stay the night but that she had refused. She made-them coffee and toast before going back to bed. [ The defendant told the Court that she laughed at Marks when he told her that he had escaped because she did not believe him and that he was always playing games on her.

Marks always wore baggy ' trousers and short hair, she said. The defendant said that she had known Marks had been sentenced to detention centre training but she did not know when or for how long. The Judge said that the combination of Marks telling the defendant that he had escaped from the centre and the two youths wearing the same clothing could have left .her in no doubt that they had escaped. Defence counsel (Mr M. J. Glue) submitted that the defendant had not given much assistance to . the escapees. She had given them no clothing or shelter for a long period, he said. “There was no planning involved but it was forced upon her by a young man she had known for some time,”'he said.