DISMISSED WARDER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 139, 14 May 1936, Page 6

DISMISSED WARDER

PETITION TO PARLIAMENT. A FAVOURABLE REPORT. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) 3 WELLINGTON, May .13 Following the escape, of a from the xvapier gaol-a man who was i subsequently recaptured and ~ U I for murder—a warder named C. b. i Young was summarily dtsmissed | petitioned Parliament through * ; member for Napier (Hon W. L Barn i arc i) praying for reinstatement in tne Public' Service. His case was favourably recommended to the Government by the Public Petitions Committee (M to Z), which reported that, with a ' to his reinstatement in the P*isons i Department, or in an eqmvalent position, the petition should be refeired to the Government for their most to ourable consideration. . . The committee also recommended that whenever a departmental lnquny is held, an unfavourable decision against a member of the Public Service is arrived at, a charge should be made and the member so charged should be afforded every opportunity of giving a defence. , The committee’s report was adopted. It was explained by Mr I. V* • Schramm that the petition was in tne charge of the member for Napier who bad attended the committee proceedings. Mr Young, the petitioner was a warder at the Napier gaol at the time when a prisoner named I rice, who was charged with murder and subsequently convicted and hanged, made his escape, though he was recaptured within a few hours. There was a star chamber sort of inquiry by the Prisons Department, statements being taken from officials when petitioner was not present and a decision arrived at that lie should be dismissed. There was not, in his opinion, a full inquiry. Mr Young . had no opportunity of crossexamining any of those who statements. He appealed against the decision, but it was just as easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle as for appellant to win his ease on appeal, and the result was that his application for reinstatement was dismissed. However, the select committee felt that not only was an injustice done to the warder, but that justice was not being done generally, for Mr Young had an unblemished record of eight years’ service. He had been in the Black Watch Regiment during the war. It was proved in evidence that while a prison was one in law it was not so in fact, for it was a place from which a prisoner who was agile and possessed a certain amount of cunning could easily escape, and the prison was under-staffed on the day of the escape. The prisoner had been let out for a few minutes in the exercise yard. He climbed tile wall and got away for a few hours. Owing to the fact that he was a man on remand on a murder charge, the department evidently felt that an example should be made of someone to justify itself in the eyes of the public.