Tear-gas used to recapture prisoners

Press, 26 April 1983, Page 7

Tear-gas used to recapture prisoners

PA Wellington The Hamilton armed offenders squad used tear-gas to flush two escaped prisoners out of a house at Aotea Harbour, Raglan, yesterday morning. A police spokesman said that the two men, who gave themselves up without a fight, had been on the run for more than three weeks after escaping with four others from Mount Eden Prison in Auckland. Three of the escapers had already been recaptured, and the police said that only one man was still missing. The two men recaptured yesterday, James Henry Wilson and Charles Emile Ross, are how in custody in Auckland with a woman also found at the house,. The woman is believed by the police to be Wilson’s girlfriend, and had been sought by the police since failing to appear in an Auckland court on April 15 for sentence on a charge of burglary and three of false pretence. Senior-Sergeant Les Lilly said that after receiving information, the Hamilton armed offenders squad went to a house at Aotea Harbour south of Raglan at 6 a.m. yesterday. “They made voice appeals, but because of a

lack of response fired teargas into the house,” he said. The two men and the woman came out of the house and gave themselves up. A firearm was later found inside the house, but the police could not say what type of gun it was. "They were taken to Auckland from there, to be dealt with by the Auckland police,” said Senior-Sergeant Lilly. The six men escaped from Mount Eden on March 31 by sawing through a bar in a window with a hacksaw, believed to have been smuggled into the jail, and then scaled an outer wall with a rope. The three already captured are Peter Wilson Kahuj, aged 21, awaiting trial on a rape charge, who was recaptured the day after the, escape, Wayne Hastie, aged 31, on remand on fraud charges, and Dennis Leslie Francis McCullough, aged 28, who together with Wilson, aged 24, and Ross, aged 25, was on remand on charges in connection with an armed hold-up at an Auckland tavern. The man still at large is Christopher Brian Hartley, aged 27, who was on remand on drugs charges.