Escaper calls newspaper

Press, 20 October 1987, Page 1

Escaper calls newspaper

PA Auckland A man claiming to be the escaped prisoner, Jimmy Marks, telephoned the “Auckland Star” newspaper yesterday afternoon saying he would not be taken alive. “There are two of us and we are not going to give ourselves up,” he said. “It’s going to cost cops’ lives. “John Banks (member of Parliament for Whangarei) has been giving criminals too much rubbish,” he said. He accused the police of “mucking” him around and claimed he had been unfairly

treated over a social welfare matter. * Marks was jailed for assaulting two detectives with a knife in the foyer of the Auckland offices of the Social Welfare Department, threatening to kill one of the staff, and possessing a knife. The caller said he had been given 18 months jail for a “noncontact” assault, and repeated he was not going to be taken alive. When asked if he had access to guns, the man hung up. Askea previously how the “Auckland Star” could assess if the call was genuine, the man gave a birth date.

The 1962 date was confirmed later by Senior-Sergeant Tony Bouchier as ' that of Jimmy Marks, aged 25. Marks was one of five prisoners who broke out of Mount Eden Prison on Friday night using bed sheets and a grappling hook fashioned from a chair leg to scale two walls. Auckland police spent the week-end checking friends, relatives and known haunts of the five men. All five, described as dangerous, Were still at large yesterday. Further reports, page 6