DARTMOOR’S GRIM TOLL

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1933, Page 8

DARTMOOR’S GRIM TOLL

CONVICT WHO OOT AWAY GASKEN’S WEEK OF LIBERTY. DESPERATE BID FOR FREEDOM. In the long history of Dartmoor Prison there have been\many desperate bids for freedom, and it is commonly believed that the recent' attempt by Gasken and Arney, the conviqts who enjoyed a week of liberty, constitutes a record' for the number of days during which the fugitives have eluded capture. This is not the case, however, for one man did actually escape, and another enjoyed freedom for 14 days. The only man who ever succeeded in getting clear away was a young Londoner named Charles Ross. He was serving a sentence, of seven years’ penal servitude, and escaped from the farm party under cover of the usual mist. Not far from the prison, on the Horrabridge Road, he met a two-horse gipsy caravan. A handsome, black-eyed Romany lass was leading the horses and, taking a desperate chance, the fugitive pleaded with her to help him. Perhaps the broad-arrow brand of the great grey stone cage of the “Moor” appealed to the love of freedom inherent in the blood of the gipsy, for she quickly dressed him in Romany garb, and sticking a bundle of brooms and mops in his arms she ordered him to lead the horses.

In this way he actually returned to the prison village and mingled with his pursuers. Ross reached Plymouth and found a berth aboard a ship, and the story goes that he returned a few years later, met his rescuer in Bristol, and married her. When the story of this escape was first exclusively published in the News of the World it aroused much controversy in official circles, and the authorities will not admit that Ross escaped. RIDDLE OF A SKELETON. They base their belief on the fact that a skeleton was discovered in a bog near the prison several months after Ross broke free, and this was taken to be the remains of the missing man. But many skeletons have been found on the bleak moors, and there was nothing to prove that this skeleton was that of the missing convict. Next to Ross comes an Irishman by the name of Thomas MacMullan. He was not recaptured until the 15th day. His pursuers found him in a hole in Crackerne Tor. In the vicinity of his lair they discovered the carcases of three disembowelled sheep, and he had evidently subsisted on the blood and raw entrails of the animals during his period of liberty. In more recent years the attempts have been few and far between, and, with one exception, spontaneous, isolated affairs. The one exception was the massed escape of June, 1924. This escape was unusual for two reasons. Firstly, it took place in bright sunshine and not in a fog, as is usually the case. Secondly, it had evidently been organised, for 12 convicts were concerned—and punished—although only about half that number had the pluck to run for it when the pre-arranged signal was given. Bearing in mind the number, it was surprising that the “narks” or informers had not passed on the information to the officials.

Within four hours they were all recaptured. The last man to be caught was found, submerged io the chin, hiding beneath one of the banks of the River Dart. Fate has always seemed to take a hand against the escaping convict, and but for sheer bad luck several attempts would have proved successful. REVEALED BY MOANS. One man got as far as Penzance in a railway trucks which he boarded at Princetown. The truck was loaded with iron girders, and in attempting to leave it when it reached its destination one of the bars fell on his leg and broke it. The convict’s moans led to his recapture. He enjoyed just three days of freedom.

Another convict named Silvester was making his escape via the railway line to Plymouth when an officer, lying prone on the steep embankment, heard his footsteps on the sleepers. It was inky dark, with the usual fog, and as the fugitive passed the officer grabbed him by the ankles. There was a desperate struggle, the convict broke free, but he left one of his boots behind in the officer’s grasp. That night he broke into a house in Yelverton, but he failed to find a pair of boots to fit him.

The next night an ambush of waiting pursuers heard the stealthy padclop of his stockinged and booted feet on the main Horrabridge Road. His days of liberty totalled two. Yet another man, Whitehead, escaped on Sunday morning. He climbed on the roof of the chaplain’s garage, which is almost opposite the main gates, and removed the slates. Dropping into the building, he undid the door bolts from the inside, and, dressed in convict garb, he calmly drove the car, in broad daylight, through the streets of the prison village and got as far as Torquay. The next day two plain-clothes detectives saw Whitehead tinkering with the stationary car. They were about to pass him without question when Whitehead, noticing them, took to his heels. After a short chase he was recaptured, and before nightfall on the second day he was safely back in Princetown, and another attempt to escape had been foiled.