STOLE MACHINE-GUNS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 26, 29 December 1945, Page 4

STOLE MACHINE-GUNS

BOYS’ ESCAPADE IN SYDNEY. SYDNEY, Dec. 28,

Found with an Austen sub-machine-gun in his possession, a 13-year-old boy risked his life by leaping on to an underground railway line at the Town Hall station in the city and hiding -from the police in a tunnel. Fortunately trains were running at long intervals at the time, and police who entered the tunnel captured the boy before a train came along. His arrest unfolded an amazing escapade by the lad and a 13-year-old companion since their escape from a detention home about 100 miles from Sydney last Monday. They hitchhiked 'to the city and broke into a suburban public school and took two Austen sub-machine-gun. Thus armed, they went to another suburb at the extreme other end of the city and broke into a public school, a jeweller’s chop and a small goods shop, stealing jewellery and a large' quantity of soft drinks and biscuits, on which they lived. They spent the nights in railway carriages. The guns were carried in sacks.

Yesterday the boys separated and one gave himself up at a city children’s shelter. He told the polipe he had hidden his gun in the hush. The second boy came to the city and wandered about with his gun in a sack. Early this morning a Royal Navy officer sat beside the boy on the Town Hall station. The officer thought the boy had a sub-machine-gun in the sack and he and another man grabbed the boy and began to take him to the police station. The boy broke free, raced down "the station steps and jumped on to the railway line. He was found crouching in the dark about 400 yards from the Town Hall station.