EFFORT TO BREAK GAOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19124, 16 September 1925, Page 14

EFFORT TO BREAK GAOL.

PRISONER STARTS TUNNEL. TIMELY DISCOVERY MADE. CAREFULLY PLANNED ATTEMPT. [from Of It own correspondent;] SYDNEY. Sept. 11. Pentridge, Victoria's largest gaol, has been the stage of many daring and dramatic attempts at escape by prisoners, but none has been more carefully planned or more patiently worked at than one dis- 1 covered last week. A prisoner named Dawson, who is underging sentences a gg re g a ting four years for stealing from a. dwelling and other offences, was, according to tho official report, missed from his bench in tho workshop. A search was mado and Dawson, who is an efficient miner, was found working in a tunnel leading from the inside of a locker in a store belonging to the works branch. Apparently a determined effort was being made to escape. The tunnel was three feet, deep and four feet long when it was discovered. Seemingly tho earth taken out of the tunnel had been carried out in buckets with rubbish, so that tho vigilance of the warders could be evaded. Probably two or three buckets or halfbuckets of earth were taken out at intervals, when suspicion could not ordinarily be excited. But even if Dawson had not been discovered, he would have received a rude shock in a few day's time. Evidently he had no surface plan or knowledge of the underground layout, as within a few feet of tho end of tho trunnel, there was a concrete foundation which it would have been practically impossible to pierce. As Dawson had undoubtedly received some assistance, investigations were made by the prison officials as to a likely coworker, and their suspicions fell on a prisoner named Rutherford, wlio was serving a sentence of three years for house breaking. Rutherford was doing the clerical work connected with tho storo from which the tunnel started and tho inquiries made indicated that ho was privy to the tunnelling operations. Dawson was charged before the visiting magistrates with attempting to escape and Rutherford with aiding snd abetting an escape. Both received additions to their present sentences. It was not Dawson's first attempt at escape. Whilo detained in tho Metropolitan Gaol, Coburg, he took bricks out of tho roof of his cell after he had been locked up at night. As in tho present instance ho was discovered. The investigations of tho prison officials did not end with the discovery of DawsOn and Rutherford as active conspirators. They aro keeping under close observation two or three notorious and desperate criminals. The prison staff suspect that they were aware of what was going on and, possibly, assisted in the planning or advising of the ' attempt. Everything seems to point to a determined_ effort on the part of a number of prisoners to escape.