Back To Dartmoor For Seven Years

Northern Advocate, 10 January 1942, Page 2

Back To Dartmoor For Seven Years

Stanley Hilton Thurston, housebreaker and gaol-breaker, who escaped from Dartmoor last March and was recaptured after breaking into a house at Kingston in August, has been sent back to Dartmoor for seven years.

He was sentenced by Mr Cecil Whiteley, the Common Serjeant, at the Old Bailey to seven years’ penal servitude on two counts of breaking and entering and one of receiving, and to five years on a fourth count of possessing house-breaking imple ments. These were concurrent sentences and will also run concurrently with unexpired terms that Thurston still has to serve to three years’ penal servitude and five years’ preventive detention. Thurston has not been punished for his escape from prison. That punishment rests with the prison governor. Keeps His Secret No one, apparently, knows the secret of Thurston’s hide-out during the months he was at liberty. The Common Serjeant’s court was crowded. Everyone wanted to see this slightly-built man of 31 who has made five prison escapes and has remained at liberty for record periods. When Detective-Inspector Stuttard was recounting his history he madeuse of such phrases as, “On this occasion 50 cases were considered . . 21 cases were considered ... 41 cases of housebreaking, and other cases of larceny were considered.” And this young criminal sat there as unlike a housebreaker as one could imagine. He was the bestdressed man in the court. He pleaded guilty. Mr G. B. McClure, prosecuting, told how the police received a message and saw Thurston up the stackpipe of a Kingston house. He was caught after a chase. Inspector Stuttard said Thurston had nine convictions. Lewes Escape Thurston escaped from Lewes Gaol in August, 1939, and was at liberty until the following February. He then received a sentence of three years’ penal servitude at the Old Bailey to run concurrently with an unexpired sentence of five years. While free he had stolen jewellery and other property worth over £IOOO. He escaped from Dartmoor last March and was at liberty until caught in August at Kingston. Mr Hector Hughes, K C., defending, spoke of Thurston’s very earnest desire to reform, and said his five escapes from gaol were really attempts to escape from the errors of his early life which he bitterly repented. “Through the Mill” Thurston, speaking from between his warders, said in a quiet voice that he realised his history was such as to prejudice the hope of any man. “At my age—l was then 29—to get five years and five years’ detention crushed everything in a man, you see If I had been given a chance at that time. . . . After a life of crime there comes a time when you honestly wish to finish with all that sort of thing. But you have to go through the mill and suffer and suffer before that realisation comes. “A sentence of that sort crushed every hope in you, and hope is all you have to live for in prison. You see ten years before you and you realise you will be over 40 when you come out. Every man’s hand is against you when you get out. There is nothing to do but try to escape.” The Common Serjeant said he could find no mitigating circumstances. Thurston was the last man to say he had not been helped. Thurston with a pale smile heard his sentence and walked out of court handcuffed to a warder.