CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 9 October 1913, Page 5

CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

ATTEMPTED PRISON BREAKING

BY TELEGRAPH^—PRESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, Oct. 8. On Saturday afternoqn a clever attempt was made to escape from the Mount Eden Gaol by Robin Jasper Crago, aged 17, who early this year achieved notoriety by his part in a sensational motor-car shooting case at Takapnna, for which in May last he was .sentenced to ten years' reformative detention on two charges of attempted murder. In July last he was in. the public eye by reason of the discovery that he had made seveisil' ingenious arrai^gements and appliances intended to be used for the purpose of escape. Crago's latest exploit carried the attempt to escape to a further ! stage than his previous efforts. He timed the attempt between three and four o'clock hi the afternoon on Saturday, when the prisoners were being passed into the enclosed portion of the exercise yards for "smoke-ho." Crago mingled with the smokers, and so stepped into a part of the yard which was used for stone-dressing, and he managed to hide behind a pile of dressed stone. Twenty minutes is allowed for "smoke-ho." When the smokers were filed back to the exercise yard Crago came out from his hiding and managed to break open a tool bo-x in the stone-dressing yard, and got a rope, a piece of chain, and a crowbar. With the crowbar he prised off from the stone-dressing screen 3ft lengths of rounded iron about a quarter of an inch thick. The iron he bent into the form of a large hook, and by means of the chain he attached the hook to a length of rope. By crawling along in the lee of the building; Crago managed to get through a gap and to the outer, wall without being KiThted by the sentry then on duty.. When he endeavored to throw the hook on his rope so that it would catch the top of the wall he was sighted by the sentry, while he was also seen by a warder. Crago was quickl" taken in charge again, and he offered no resistance. He was brought before Mr F. V. Frazer, S.M.. this morning, for an aggravated breach of prison regulations, entailed in an attempt to escape. He admitted the offenre. stating that he had no excuse to offer, and was sentenced to be put on bread and water rations for seven days.