WARDER STUNNED

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24106, 27 October 1941, Page 9

WARDER STUNNED

DASH FROM HOSPITAL PRISONER'S BRIEF LIBERTY EXPLOIT IN STOLEN PYJAMAS , , . SYDNEY, Oct. 25 An habitual criminal, Jack Hanchard, aged 24, serving a three years' sentence for housebreaking in Long Bay gaol, Sydney, escaped from Prince Henry Hospital after stunning his guard with a bottle. For more than an hour he wandered round the district in a suit of red and white-spotted women's pyjamas, which he had stolen from the nurses' quarters. He was later recaptured. Because he had escaped from Lon<r Bay gaol in 1937, Hnnchard was placed in » hospital ward with barred windows and as guarded by a warder, Mr Keith Harris About 4.10 a.m. on Wednesday he asked Mr. Harris to roll him a cigarette. As the warder leaned forward Hanchard hit him on the head with a bottle. Hanchard rushed for the door but the dazed warder seized him and threw him to the floor. Hanchard was subdued and said: ''l give in," but as the warder relaxed his grip to reach for his handcuffs lie wrenched free and hit him on the chin. Nurse Massev, who entered the ward, slammed the door and held it, but Hanchard threw her aside The fugitive, who had lost his nightclothing in struggling to escape, ran through a women's ward into the hospital grounds. He snatched a suit of women s pyjamas from a clothes line near the nurses' quarters and donned it. He also obtained a pair of old white shoes. The man was seen at 5.40 a.m. two miles from the hospital b v Ronald Gordon Donnelly, aged 14. who was delivering milk. Donnelly said: "A man stuck his head out of a telephone booth and asked me if 1 could lend him a pair of pants. 1 said: 'I onlv wear shorts, and they would not fit you.' Then he went back into the booth." Hanchard then accosted John Vogt. aged IS. as he passed the bootli on his way to work. Vogt said: "When he asked me for clothes I told Donnelly to take him to tny home and give him an old pair of pants. When T came home in the afternoon I found he had taken my best pair of pants, a cardigan and a pair of shoes." ' The fugitive was captured at 9 p.m. wearing a suit which a friend had brought from his home.