PRISONER ESCAPES

Grey River Argus, 21 May 1942, Page 2

PRISONER ESCAPES

From Auckland Hospital WHILE ATTENDING FOR TREATMENT.

AUCKLAND. May 20. In a sensational dasn _ throm i patients and staff at a clinic at the Auckland Hospital shortly before o p.m. a prisoner from Auckland gaol who was attending for treatment, made his escape from custody. a search, which was instituted immediately by wardens and police, ana continued until, a late hour, failed to locate the escapee. The prisoner was Robert John Mann. He was one of four men brought to hospital for (treatment under the escort of a warder. While they were awaiting attention in the wafting room Mann received permission from the warder to enter a convenience inside the building and adjommg other rooms. A suaaen commotion in the inner rooms was the first indication of the prisoners dash for freedom. Running through the women’s clinic amid a hub-bub of voices, he disappeared through the doorway giving access to the hospital grounds. From that point all trace of him was lost and he is believed to have mingled quietly with other people in the grounds. With dusk falling rapidly and many people returning homeward at that hour the task of the police in locating the prisoner, who was attired in ordinary civilian dress, was made more difficult.

Mann was serving a term of four years’ imprisonment for a series of breaking and entering and theft convict'o'ns, a!nd ‘was sentenced at the Supreme Court at Auckland in August last.