GREASE DID IT

Grey River Argus, 25 February 1949, Page 8

GREASE DID IT

LONDON, Feb. 23

Dartmoor warders are puzzling over what is described as one of the most amazing escapes in the long history of the prison. This was made by 31-year-old Victor Harold James, who, though he weighs nearly 12 stone, and measures 36 inches round the chest, squeezed himself between window bars only 6 7-Bin. apart. James, who was free for 13 hours before he was recaptured, said in his return to prison that he took off all his clothes, greased his body with some ointment he had secreted, and forced his way through the. bars in a large window overlooking toe courtyard. He then dropped TO feet to the courtyard and, using a rope made of his bedclothes, to which he had attached a steel hoop, climbed the 15-foot. wall round the outside of the prison.

ALSO CAUGHT!

WELLINGTON, Feb. 24.

Persons who escaped from prisons in New Zealand were always recaptured, Mr Justice Fair told a gaol escapee who appeared before him for sentence in the Supreme Court today. “And when they are. recaptured,” continued His Honour, “it is the duty of the Court to impose an additional sentence of imprisonment so that they will not make the same attempt again. The only result of an attempted escape in New Zealand is that a prisoner has to serve a longer sentence.”

With these words he imposed an additional six months to the term to which William Desmond Bovey, aged 29, a cook, had been earliei’ sentenced.