CHARGE OF ESCAPING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21618, 10 October 1933, Page 12

CHARGE OF ESCAPING

PRISONERS IN COURT TWO MEN SENT FOR TRIAL GAOL ON COUNT OF THEFT Two prisoners, Harris O'Neill, need 41, and Georgo Eden Charles Hay ward, aged 25, appearod before Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday, charged with escaping from lawful custody in Mount Eden prison on September 11. The accused were jointly and individually charged, in addition, with stealing two overcoats, two hats and two scarves, of a total value of £8 17s 6d, on September 14. Pleas of not guilty were entered. A summary charge of stealing two razors valued at £l, the property of Thomas Roy Lawson, on September 15, was also preferred, pleas of not guilty being entered. Evidence was called by Detective-Sergeant O'Sullivan to state that the articles were missed from a house at One Tree Hill, Mr. Lawson saying the razors produced in Court resembled his. Sergeant Finch, of the Newmarket station, said the razors were found on accused after they were arrested in King Georgo Avenue, Epsom, by Constable Bowie and witness. Accused offered the explanation that the lazois were their own property. One Month's Imprisonment The magistrate, in imposing a sentence of one month's imprisonment on each of the accused, said he had no doubt the men obtained the articles while they were going around Auckland during their four days of liberty. On the charge of escaping evidence was given by Neil McKinnon, a warder at Mount Eden prison, that accused were placed in the bakehouse at the gaol about 12.30 a.m. on September 11. Replying to a question by Hay ward, witness said it was not his duty to call back at the bakehouse between the time accused were locked up and the time of the alarm that an escape had been effected. Arthur Cyril Davies, another warder, said he found the men had escaped when he visited the bakehouse in consequence of a telephone message received about 4 a.m. It was evident that the bars of a window had been forced. Exhibits in Court "Is it not a fact that a prisoner by the name of Wcstlake, in the presence of a former superintendent,, passed through the bars when thev had not been forced?" Hayward asked witness. Witness: Through the bars, but expanded metal was not fitted to the window then. The chief warder, Charles Edward Spittal, said Hayward was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in 1929 and O'Neill to a term of five years last June. Witness produced a fire-bar which, he said, could have been used to force an escape, and pieces of piping which could have been placed against the prison wall to surmount it. On the second indictable charge, evidence was called by the police that two young men attending a meeting at New Lynn missed the articles of flothinc produced in Court when they loft the meeting. Both young men said they did not know the accused, who had no authority to take the articles. Both men were committed to the Supreme Court for trial in respect of the two major allegations.