The Reporter.

Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 35, 22 December 1900, Page 9

The Reporter.

ESCAPE OF TWO PRISONERS. RE-CAPTURED AT HEDGEHOPS. On Tuesday morning two members of the prison gang working in the Hospital grounds—William Richard Brookes and Charles Heatley—bolted, and made off in the direction of Oruickshank’s bush, North Invercargill. The police, were speedily in pursuit, but nothing more was heard of the runaways until Wednesday* when it was reported that they had visited a hut near the Grove Bush post office, about seventeen miles from Invercargill. They ttied to break into the place with an axe, and demanded bread, but left when ordered to do so by the occupant, Mr T. Forde. Nothing more was heard of the prisoners until Thursday evening, when they were arrested, while crossing Otapiri Bridge, by Warders Hawkins and Dickenson, and Constable Rasmussen. They were taken to Brown’s on foot, and driven from thence to Invercargill, which was reached early on Friday morning. In the interval after leaving Forde’s place both men had secured changes of clothing, and carried swags containing provisions, while Brookes had a e:un and sheath knife and a flask of gunpowder. Brookes was undergoing a sentence of seven years for criminally assaulting a girl in December last, and Heatley, who is understood to be a very troublesome prisoner, bad five months to serve of a sentence of one year for theft in Canterbury. Heatley and Brookes were brought up at the Police Court yesterday and sentenced to fourteen days solitary confinement.