MAN HUNT IN STORM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22687, 27 March 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAN HUNT IN STORM

DARTMOOR fONTTCTS DASH "f VERY NEARLY DID IT" ! Two hundred police and armed ' warders searcher! treacherous Dartmoor in a storm ot* vin<"l ancl ram recent! v for a ronrict, one of a prison farm working party who had made a dash for liberty. Ten hours after his escape, the man. Henry VT. M. Alexander, a native of Woolwich, was recaptured in a quarry, five miles from the prison. F ivc men had marched from the prison across the main road to the farm. They were in the act of removing their oilskins when Alexander, who is 4,3. bolted. The warder who was hi sole charge of the party was unable to leave the other prisoner?, but he raised the alarm. The prison siren shrieked, and every available officer took part in the hunt which followed. Every police station in the district was warned. Then, as dusk was falling, four officers entered a quarry shed a mile and a half from Tavistock. Alexander was there. He was naked, and in the hut he had made a bed of a pile of sacking. His muddy prison clothes were laid out on the floor to dry. "I very nearly did it," he said, as he quietly surrendered. "I should have been in Exeter by to-morrow with luck. Never mind, I've had my fling, and I'm satisfied." Alexander's dash was the third at- • tempt within three months on the part of convicts to escape from Dartmoor, j Not one has ever succeeded. This attempt was made on the fifth j anniversary of the big mutiny in the | famous prison. Alexander is alleged to have planned his escape as a revenge for the punishment; of another convict, a great friend j of his, who had broken prison regula- j tions. Alexander is serving a sentence of j five years' penal servitude, passed at I the Old Bailey, [ iOudon, in October, I 10.34. for receiving stolen goods and j having in his possession housebreaking ! implements by night. He had previously served two other j terms of penal servitude, and during j the mutiny in UKiL' was prison organ- I blower. He remained at his post when ! the rioting broke out.