JEWEL THIEF ESCAPES

Evening Star, Issue 20981, 21 December 1931, Page 8

JEWEL THIEF ESCAPES

A DANGEROUS CRIMINAL

ROSSITER'S ASSAILANT AND LEADER IK RAID OH DAWSON'S [P*k United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, December 21. A man serving a long prison sentence, and regarded by the police as a dangerous criminal, Thomas William Wilson, aged twenty-six, escaped last night from Auckland Hospital, to which he had been removed on Thursday from the prison, suffering from an internal trouble. Nobody saw him go. He was in bed at 10 o’clock, and about 10.30 a bouse adjoining the hospital grounds was entered, presumably by the escapee, and a pair of grey trousers and a black-and-white check coat stolen from a balcony room, where two young men were sleeping. Wilson is sft 7in, of fresh complexion, with brown hair, blue eyes, the right eye nearly closed by cataract. He was sentenced at Dunedin on June 18 to a total of five years’ hard labour, to be followed by reformative detention. Mr Justice Kennedy then said that in six months Wilson had stolen goods worth £4,791, of which £3,000 in jewellery had not been recovered, the proceeds of which, most likely, he hoped to enjoy when released. The judge said that he regarded the prisoner as callous, brutal, and dangerous.

“BRUTAL AND CALLOUS”

JUDGE’S INDICTMENT Of WILSON PERPETRATOR OF ROSSITER OUTRAGE Thomas William Wilson, I ■unforced by the nature of your crimes, by tho determination that you evinced in their execution, and by your attack upon an old man of seventy-three and his wife to regard you as a callous, a brutal, .and a dangerous criminal. I have no doubt that there have not been before this court in Dunedin for the last twentyfive years graver crimes of the type of those for which you appear for sentence. These were the comments of His Honour Mr Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court at Dunedin on Juno 18 of this year in sentencing Wilson to imprisonment with hard labour for live years, and to reformative Retention tor one year on four charges of breaking and entering, assaulting .Walter G. Rossiter -with intent to rob, and causing actual bodily harm to Jane Rossiter. Rupert Saunders, who was Wilson’s associate in the Rossiter case, was sentenced to reformative detention lor three years on the charge of assaulting Rossiter with intent to rob, His Honour pointing out that though Saunders did not use tho violence that Wilson used, -he nevertheless restrained Rossiter wlnje Wilson proceeded with the robbery. _ A rather dramatic appeal for leniency was' made by _ Wilson in a long statement, which his counsel road to the court. In that ho outlined his history from boyhood and his entry into crime, which he claimed was the result of his environment and association with “ old hands ” when he first went to gaol as a youth. He expressed Jus sorrow for the Rossiter episode, and said that he was the means of getting Saunders into trouble. 1 1 ask your Honour to make all sentences concurrent,” concluded Wilson, “ and to recommend that I should be deported back to Australia. I have told Your Honour tiffs truth, and I hone you will be clement with me for the sake of my wife and child.” “No such ferocious burglary has come under my notice while I have appeared for the Crown in Dunedin,’ was tho comment of the Crown Prosecutor on Wilson’s crime. “The attempted burglary was characterised by brutal ferocity on the part of Wilson. . . . After assaulting Mrs Rossiter he proceeded to render Mr Rossiter bereft of the power of speech by inserting his fingers down his throat and twisting liis fingers like a corkscrew, so as to render the old man incapable of crying out.” Wilson, it was pointed out by the Crown Prosecutor, had a record in Australia, and in 1926 was committed for a series of serious burglaries. He came to Dunedin under an alias, and lie returned to Australia twice as a stowaway after his first arrival. Within six months of his being in New Zealand ho had stolen goods valued at £4,791 15s, of which very' littte was recovered. The comment of the judge on this aspect of the matter was: “Most likely it is a fact that, if you have not already enjoyed the proceeds of your share of the stolen jewellery, you hope in the future, when released from prison, then to enjoy what yon have dishonestly obtained.” In addition to the Rossiter assault, Wilson was concerned in tho theft of jewellery from Dawsons shop in George street—an impudent offence committed in daylight, theft of jewellery from W. J Paterson’s, and tho theft of fill’s from R. S. Black and Son’s and the Hudson Fur Company.