GAOL ESCAPE EFFORT

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 July 1945, Page 3

GAOL ESCAPE EFFORT

ONE MAN INJURED. AUCKLAND, July 26. A daring attempt by two prisoners to escape from Auckland gaol shortly after 11 o’clock on Wednesday night was frustrated when one of them, Herbert Harris Keith Maxfield, fell from a height of several feet while scaling a. stone wall and injured both legs. The other prisoner, Randall Reginald David Smith, who is serving a life sentence for murder, is stated to have abandoned his attempt to go any further and notified the warders when he saw that Maxfield was incapacitated. Maxfield was taken back into custody. Both men have featured previously in escapes from Auckland prison. The prisoners had been in their separate cells for some hours before they broke out, and no information was available to-day as to how the men made their way out of their quarters, although it is known that they left by doors. After they got outside an attempt was made to scale a high stone wall. Maxfield lost his grip and fell several feet, injuring both ankles. He was unable to walk, and Smith is believed to have called the warders as soon as his companion fell. The wall is in a confined area, and had the prisoners been able to climb over it they would still have had to scale the outer wall before they were cleai’ of the prison. It is understood that there were three warders on duty at the time. Two were patrolling each wing, and a third was on duty in the office. When the warders saw the extent of Maxfield’s injuries to his feet an ambulance was called and he was taken to the Auckland Hospital, where his feet were manipulated and set in plaster. A prison warder has since been guarding him in a cell at the hospital. It is expected that he will be able to return to prison within a few days. It is possible that some person outside the prison had a part in the planning of the attempted escape, and some ground for this belief is given by the fact that early on Wednesday evening the small wooden premises of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society in Khyber Pass Road, a short distance from the prison, were broken into and a search made for men s clothing. It is not known whether anything was stolen. The intruders entered by breaking a window at the back of the building.