ESCAPE FROM GAOL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 261, 2 October 1940, Page 6

ESCAPE FROM GAOL

AUCKLAND SENSATION.

WARDERS ASSAILED

ONE GRAVELY HURT

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Oct. 1

Four prisoners, one of them a murderer, escaped from an Auckland prison shortly after 6 o’clock to-night after desperate struggles with warders, one of whom is in a critical condition at the Auckland Hospital. Two other warders suffered only superficial injuries but were kept at the hospital for observation during the night.

The last seen of' the four criminals was when they clambered into a stationary car in Seccombe’s Road, Epsom, and coasted down ait incline to Crowhurst Street, Newmarket, about a quarter of a mile away. There was ample benzine in the tank' but the owner had removed the ignition key from the switch. Sou ads of police in fast cars are combing tlie Auckland province. The injured warders are: — Mr Joseph Grnydon Crawford, aged 26, married, of Epsom; ■who suffered a fractured skull and concussion.. His

condition is-very serious. Mr Joseph .Wenzl Scholium, aged 32, married, of Carlton-Gcre Roads; slight concussion and scalp wounds. His condition is not serious. Mr Arthur Burgess, aged '43, married, of Grafton’; who suffered similar injuries to Mr Scholium and is not seriously ill. ATTACK WELL PLANNED.

The attack seemed to have been well planned in advance. From available information it appears that a little before 6.15 p.m. the prisoners were about to be locked in their cells when without warning five prisoners made a concerted" attack upon the three warders injured. A hammer and a piece of lead piping wrapped in a sack were found near the spot where Mr Crawford had a long struggle with his assailants, and from the nature of the injuries to his head one at least of those weapons was used upon'him. Haying silenced Mr Crawford the men then turned their full attention to the other two warders, and tin a short time had left them unconscious on the floor. The men seized all the available keys and after unlocking the various grills and communicating doors leading from one section of the prison to another, they at length reached one of the gates. Meanwhile aonther warder, Mr James Carson, came on the scene. He grappled with one man but the other four opened ah outer gate and slipped away. The fifth man was overpowered and returned to the cells. The alarm was given and shortly afterward the Newmarket police -received a telephone message from Mr Frank Levin, a retired civil servant, to say his motor-car had been Stolen from the house in which he was a guest for dinner. Mr Levin was at 34 Seccombe’s Road having dinner when a woman came to the door and asked for the owner of a motor-car which had stood outside. Sbe told Mr Levin that four men clad in prison clothes had run down the street, clambered into tiie car and tried to start it. They; then let in ,the clutch and coasted down the street. Mr Levin said that' only this afternoon he had refilled his petrol tank. The fugitives are:— Randall Reginald David Smith, labourer, aged 27, who was sentenced to death at Timaru on February 4, 1933, for the murder of an aged storekeeper at Arundel, Canterbury. The death, sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life by the Executive Council and was announced by the Minister of Justice (Hon. H. G. R.

Mason) on March 8, 1938. David .Fraser Watson, aged 21, a seaman and labourer; .who was sentenced to reformative detention for 18

months for arson. John Henry Silva, alias Shortcliffe, aged 25, a labourer and butcher, serving a term of two years for breaking, entering and theft at Christ-

church. Bryan James O’Hehir, aged 23, serving 18 months’ reformative detention on nine charge of burglary, and recently sentenced at Christchurch to an extra year for escaping from 'the Christchurch gaol.