DARING ESCAPES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 126, 30 May 1944, Page 4

DARING ESCAPES

PRISONERS AT SYDNEY

O.C. SYDNEY, May 26. Escapes from Long Bay gaol, on the outskirts of Sydney, are rare, but twice this week the alarm signal sounded through the grim prison buildings. On the first occasion the escapee was a 19-years-old girl, who had twice previously this month given the police the slip. The second alarm was raised after two men, one a violent criminal, were missed by warders. The men were Milton Thompson, 19, who was sentenced at Sydney Quarter Sessions last Friday to six years' gaol for having attempted to shoot a detective, and Stanley' Hoppner, 20, serving, a six months' sentence for house-breaking. . Thompson and Hoppner escaped in a military truck. With other prisoners they had been put to loading reconditioned Army gear in the gaol yard. Half an hour after the lorry had driven away from the gaol, warders on duty missed Thompson and Hoppner, and raised the alarm. When the men could not be found the interior of the truck was examined, and it was noticed that the cases which the prisoners had loaded in the yard were about a foot away from the driver's cabin. There was sufficient room between the boxes and the cabin to accommodate two or three men. The grey-numbered gaol uniforms which Thompson and Hoppner had been wearing were found in the truck. . Immediately the Criminal Investigation Branch was told of the men's escape a State-wide search was ordered, but, early the next morning Thompson and Hoppner, in civilian clothes, were arrested at gun-point in the city. The girl escapee was Beverley McLaren. She first escaped from the Melbourne Receiving House on May 6 and was detained the next day. On May 8 she evaded her police escort and travelled to Sydney, where she was taken-to Long Bay gaol. She escaped from the gaol last Tuesday ar,d was arrested the next day on a railway station 16 miles from Sydney.