BID FOR LIBERTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3942, 1 October 1929, Page 29

BID FOR LIBERTY.

PRISONER SHOT BY WARDER. BUCKLEY’S GRADUAL RECOVERY. AUCKLAND, September 26. After hovering between life and death since he was shot last Friday afternoon while attempting to escape from Mount Eden Gaol, John Leslie Buckley, the 26-year-old prisoner, who escaped on a previous occasion, is now making good headway at the Auckland Hospital and his complete recovery is probable. Since his admission to the hospital a warder has been continually by his bed. It has now been ascertained that Buckley had openly said in gaol that he intended to make a break if he ever got a chance, and for that reason a close watch was kept on him. Last Friday afternoon he was drilling with other prisoners in one of the yards. He saw the shadow of a chance when a warder's back was turned, and with the promptitude which characterises all his movements he made a dash for the eastern wall of the prison. He climbed swiftly up a drain pipe, and was poising himself for a 30-foot drop to the ground. There was a crack of a rifle, and Buckley fell in a heap. He staggered through the grounds of the warders’ home adjoining the gaol, heaved himself with a desperate effort across a low stone wall, and then staggered fully 10 yrds through rocks and fennel before he collapsed. “ I didn’t think they’d shoot me, but they did,” said Buckley to his mother when she visited him at the hospital. He was much brighter this morning, and remarked to those at the bedside’: “I'm getting better now. I’m going to pull through.”