BOLT FROM CUSTODY

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 59, 7 September 1945, Page 8

BOLT FROM CUSTODY

STORY TOLD IN COURT

P.A. AUCKLAND. This Day. The sequel to an incident at the Auckland Hospital on August 2, when a prisoner receiving medical attention decamped in his pyjamas, was the appearance before Mr. J. Morling, S.M., of Roy James Whelan, 35, labourer.' •on a charge of escaping from lawful custody. Senior Detective Trethewey called evidence to show that the accused, who had been arrested on a charge of theft, was under guard at the hospital on August 2. and was kept in a portion of the institution known as "the cells." Early in the afternoon he was taken to the X-ray department on a trolley by male hospital attendants, and accompanied by a constable. The accused, who was dressed in his pyjamas, was left in a passage to await his turn to be X-rayed. A few minutes later he jumped off the trolley and disappeared. Some curtains prevented the constable seeing which way he went. The accused was seen in Grafton Road, and then in Park Avenue, where he vanished between two houses. Evidence was given by Constable Fell, of Takapuna, that he saw the accused at Milford on August 21 and arrester! him. The accused pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. A 13-year-old Yorkshire schoolboy, Harwood Henry Flintoff, was- recently ■ awarded the rare Edward Medal for saving a farmer from being gored to death by a bull, says- the "Daily Express." Henry had nothing but his hands with which to fight the bull, which knocked the farmer down and knelt on him. The boy hung on to the i nose-ring until the farmer got free.