WAS IT HANSEN?

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3830, 6 November 1936, Page 7

WAS IT HANSEN?

STRANGER SEEN AT AROHENA. CLOTHING AND EATABLES REMOVED FROM HOUSE. Indications pointing to the escapee, Charles Arthur Hansen, who “ cleared cut ” from Waikeria Borstal Institution last Sunday afternoon, being in the Arohena district are associated with incidents reported to the Kihikihi police on Thursday. It appears that a settler, Mr Charles Hillhouse, of Arohena, noticed a young man on the roadway near his property busily engaged drying his clothing, and Mr Hillhouse invited the man to come inside and have a cup of tea. The invitation was accepted, and while the clothes were drying a meal was partaken of. The settler having to go to work, the men parted; but on Wednesday afternoon the benefactor found that some wearing apparel, including two suits of clothes and a pair of boots, and also provisions and a cheque book, had been stolen. His thoughts immediately turned to the man he had fed on Tuesday morning, for he was the only stranger in the neighbourhood. Constable Shaw, of Kihikihi, was notified on Thursday, and he proceeded to (he scene. His inquiries led to the belief that the man was Hansen, the escapee from Waikeria. Mr Hillhouse was not even aware that anybody was missing from the institution. - BACK IN CUSTODY AGAIN. HANSEN CAPTURED AT OTEWA. Following the information received from the Kihikihi police the Waikeria officials set out to track Hansen. They were assisted by Constable Shaw, while Constable Wilson, from Otorohanga, was later co-operating with the officials as the venue of the chase steadily approached his district. The man, who by now was confidently assumed to be Hansen, kept well off the roads and made his way steadily across rough country into the Happy Valley, which leads from Korakonui towards Maihiihi. Parties of men steadily concentrated towards a given point, making sure that Hansen should not slip through the cordon, and at about 9 o’clock the wanted man was recaptured, without resistance, by officers of the institution in company with Constable Wilson. He was very tired, and seemed glad that the period ot liberty was at an end. He said he had been asleep in some scrub when a car containing Waikeria officers passed near by earlier in the day. Hansen was taken back to Waikeria and doubtless will be dealt with by a. Magistrate for his escape from legal custody. Inquiry in other quarters shows that when Mr Hilhouse missed his clothing, etc., he went to the nearest farmhouse with a telephone, Mr Yeates' place, nearly four miles from Hillhouse's, and it was from there that Constable Shaw was communicated with.