DETERMINED ESCAPE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 27 January 1927, Page 9

DETERMINED ESCAPE

.* SENSATION IN SYDNEY,

DEAF MUTE’S COURAGE

DESPER ATE DASH, FOR FREEDOM

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION--COPYRIGHT,

Received 1.30 p.m. to-day. SYDNEY, Jan. 21

Holiday crowds at the Rand wick racecourse and. at Bondi beach yesterday were provided with unexpected excitement. A racecourse' detective arrested a, man for picking pockets, and placed him in. an,' office while ho went lor a policeman. The prisoner attacked the attendant, and escaped. He was traced to Bondi, and was found in a bathing costume on the beach. After an exciting chase through the crowds, a plain-clothes constable cornered .him in the baths, and covered him with' a revolver.. Another surfer, who was deaf and dumb, thinking that the constable was attacking the man, held the constable, and the wanted man attempted to wrench away the .revolver, which exploded, and shot him. .He rushed to a motor-car, told the driver that he had injured himself on the rocks, and persuaded him to drive to a hospital. Eu route he seized a..coat, covered hi® bathing clothes, then jumped out. and escaped.