BORSTAL ESCAPEE

Southland Times, Issue 24003, 19 December 1939, Page 3

BORSTAL ESCAPEE

THREE CHARGES OF THEFT Described by Sergeant-Detective T. Y. Hall as a desperate young criminal, against whom further charges would be preferred at Invercargill, Stanley Raymond O’Connell, aged 20, pleaded guilty in the Dunedin Magistrates Court yesterday to three charges of theft, one of unlawful conversion of a motor-car, and to escaping from lawful custody. , Sergeant-Detective Hall said that the accused, accompanied by another youth who had already been dealt with by the court, escaped from the Borstal Institution at Invercargill on November 8. They had occupied a “hide-out at Gorge Creek, from which O’Connell had rallied forth on thieving expeditions, stealing clothes and money from the Public Works camps and elsewhere. After that the accused had taken a motor-car belonging to the Rev. Mr Irwin while the service was in progress at the church in Roxburgh. The car had been abandoned after the two youths had been chased by the police at Palmerston. O’Connell had then got to Dunedin, and while in the Botanic Gardens on November 23. had stolen a purse, which a woman had left on the seat of her motor-car while she visited the winter garden. Later, the accused had committed several offences at or near Christchurch, and had been sentenced there to a further 12 months imprisonment, in addition to being convicted and discharged on 11 other charges The Magistrate (Mr H. W. Bundle) said that, as all the facts told previously would be placed before the Court when the accused was dealt with on the charge of escaping from custody —on which he would be remanded to appear at Invercargill—the proper course would be to enter a conviction only on all the other charges.