Forecasts Escapers disturbed in holiday home?

Press, 30 May 1983, Page 1

Forecasts

Escapers disturbed in holiday home?

Two men, believed to be escapers from Paparua Prison, eluded the police after they were found hiding in a bach at Church Bay on the south side of Lyttelton Harbour yesterday. The men fled on foot when the bach owner unlocked the door of his holiday home about 1.40 p.m. Their means of transport, a Datsun rental car stolen from Christchurch Airport about Wednesday last week, was left securely garaged at the bach.

Radio broadcasts warned the public not to approach the men, believed to be Graham John Ashley, also known as Paul StatesmanWest, aged 33, and Anthony John Downey, aged 21, who escaped from Paparua Prison last Monday morning. The pair were on earlymorning kitchen duty when they kicked out a grille in the prison’s cookhouse window and broke through a perimeter fence. A big police hunt was mounted round the shores of Lyttelton Harbour after the police in the control room at the Christchurch Central station quickly realised that the two intruders reported by the bach owner were probably the prison escapers, Ashley and Downey.

, Road blocks were set up, and a police dog followed a scent leading from the bach for half an hour before losing it. A reported sighting of the two men in the nearby Diamond Harbour township was checked and the search continued through last evening without success.

A police spokesman said there were indications that the men had been in the bach for some time. It was not known if anything had been stolen, but the fugitives were not believed to be armed. Ashley and Downey are both Europeans, about 180 cm (6ft) tall, of medium build, with brown hair. The Christchurch police still seek two other prison escapers, Anthony James Beadle, 175 cm tall, and thin, who escaped from his escort at Christchurch Hospital on May 10, and Kevin Lofthouse, one of two men charged with the $14,000 armed hold-up of the Shirley T.A.8., who escaped from Addington Prison on May 14. Lofthouse, aged 22, has an olive complexion and speaks with a Scottish accent.