Inmate wanted to stay

Press, 26 December 1986, Page 16

Inmate wanted to stay

PA Auckland A Rangipo Prison farm inmate turned himself in at Mount Eden Jail, saying he would rather stay there.

The police told the District Court in Auckland that Anthony Edward Symes, aged 24, was on week-end leave from Rangipo last month.

Arrested on the first

day of his leave, for obscene language, Symes was remanded in custody for three days at Mount Eden then dropped off to catch a bus back to Rangipo.

But he did not get on the southbound bus and gave himself up at Mount Eden the next day, saying he would rather stay there because the guards at Rangipo were hassling

him, the police said. Judge Gilbert told the defendant, who admitted a charge of escaping from custody while serving 18 months for burglary and theft, That it was not up to him to decide where he would serve his sentence.

The Judge jailed Symes for an extra two months, less the 34 days spent on remand at his preferred “home,” Mount Eden.