A FRESH TRAIL

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 9, 5 October 1940, Page 16

A FRESH TRAIL

Escaped Prisoners In Auckland

WIDESPREAD SEARCH AUCKLAND, October 4. An observant young woman who saw an abandoned Morris cat about a mile from Silverdale today, and reports of thefts of petrol and clothing from two places at Massey during Thursday night, gave the police a fresh trail of the four men who escaped from Auckland prison on Tuesday night. Motor patrols and search parties have since been ranging.far and wide.

The car was one stolen from A. M. Jackson’s garage at Orakei Road, Reinuera, early on Thursday morning, and had evidently travelled over rough territory. When Mr. Jackson saw his car at the central police station this afternoon, he found the panels badly scratched as though the machine had been forced through scrub country. The exhaust pipe was bent and the under-carriage was coated witli mud. 'J'he petrol tank was dry. On the flooring of the car wore several sets of muddy footprints. A seven-year-old schoolboy. John Small, who lives o:; the Dairy FiatSilverdale Road about two miles south of Silverdale, said that while he was on ills way to school at about 8 o’clock on Thursday morning, lie noticed three men get out of a small motor-car and look underneath the concrete bridge just before the Hy-pass to Kaukapakapa. He said they then looked into some scrub at the roadside, got into the car and drove down the by-pass.

He was quite sure, lie said, that there were only three.men in the car, one in the driving seat and two others in the back seat, and he saw sufficient of the driver’s face to describe him. He told his mother about the incident when he reached home that afternoon, but she attached little significance to it till this morning, and when her husband later heard that Mr. Jackson’s ear had been stolen lie advised the police. Just before midday a young woman living on a farm along the Kaukapakapa Road saw a small ear abandoned at the roadside about 50 yards from the main road. One door was wide open as though someone had left hurriedly. When she reached Silverdale shortly afterward she and a friend discussed the matter and the young woman had copies of the number of Mr. Jackson’s missing car. She returned to the spot where she saw the ear and found it had two number-plates screwed together on the back and one at the front The front .one corresponded with the number she had a copy of. She turned the screws on the back bracket, lifted the top plate and found that the lower one also corresponded with that of the missing car. She notified the police shortly afterward. Meanwhile there is very little change in the condition of the three warders who were assaulted and injured at Auckland prison on Tuesday Wight. Mr. J. G. Crawford, aged 62, who was severely injured about the head, was reported by the Auckland Hospital to be still unconscious, and the condition of Mr. J. AV. Scholium, aged 32, and Mr. A. Burgess, aged 43, both of whom had slight concussion and scalp wounds, was reported to be satisfactory.