WALKED FROM COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 December 1924, Page 15

WALKED FROM COURT.

PRISONER’S ESCAPE?!

CRIMINAL OF WORST TYPE. )

SYDNEY, Nov. 28. Percy Archibald McDonald, a criminal of the worst type, and a man, who, while not considered a desperate character has given the police considerable trouble when he is out of gaol, made his escape from a gaol warder in ridiculously easy circumstances last Friday afternoon.

At the time lie was waiting to appeal tc. the Court of Criminal Appeals against one of two sentences he is serving; at the present time.. He is a big mail, iiot very active, and only one warder was, .sent into the Supreme Court with him.

They sat in the Court all day, and at 4.15 p.m., when McDonald’s case had hot been reached, the warder decided to telephone the patrol and get his charge back to the Long Bay Penitentiary; wh'ere be is Held pending his appeal. The war,der and McDonald went into the passage outside the Court, and there the warder asserts he asked a Court official to keep an eye on his prisoner while* he used the telephone. The warded went into a telephone bureau, watching McDonald out of the eoriiOr of his eye, and iVas connected ■with the station, where the patrol man ri’as waiting.. The man at the Other end of the telephone could not understand something the warder said, and asked him to Speak into the instrument. He only ceased his vigilance for a moment while, he turned, but iii that time McDonald slipped away and practically walked to freedom. The warder gave chase as soon as he discovered McDonald’s disappearance, but the bird had flown. There were plenty of ways in which lie could have got away, for the tramcar's run jta.st the door through which he is said to have left the Court, and he could have jumped on any oiie of these.

No ohe knew of the escape until the warder telephoned the police after an ineffectual search for his charge. News of the disappearance of McDonald was immediately broadcasted through the metropolitan area, from police headquarters, but up to the time this was Written McDonald bad succeeded in evading capture. It was learned on. Saturday that he visited a place at Auburn oh Friday night arid asked for mdney, but was refused, while he wa© seen to- pass through H'omebush iri a,motor car still later. He was known to have a motor car at his disposal. There have been numerous reports of his presence on the mountains during the week, and there is no doubt he has been seen, iri that vicinity, which ho knows well. He has abandoned the car, arid is thought to have been responsible for the theft of several bicycles which . have disappeared . at various times from places near where he was steen. Police in those districts are, searching for him, but if he chose to lie low in the mountains he might stay free indefinitely. The chances are that he will be captuted whferi in search of food, unless he has tiuide arrangements for sbiriedrie to supply him with necessaries. -■ . ' ■ Louis Hart, the “Deadlight King,” made the last esriapri from the Supreme Court, when he dived through a lavatory window And walked from the Court iri full sight of a judge arid his associates. • Like McDonald, he- gave the police a long chrise before he was caught down the South Coast.

Iri Hart’s ease, however, the police had good reason to believe that Hart intended to 1 shoot if cornered, and this belief was proved correct when he was arrested with a revolver in his possession. 1

McDonald is of an arrogant type, and it was- freely stated that he would escape before his many appeals were concluded. “I’ll never do this sentence,” he said at the quarter sessions, arid when the judge had .finished his directions McDonald rose in the box and shouted, “You whited sepulchre.” i as a list of convictions dating from 1900, arid while away with tbe .A.I.F. he served sentences at Pontypool. Brighton, Preston, ■ ■ Reading, aiuFEssex. One of his sentences was for j “inciting to riot.” arid he was always in trouble while in the army.