FRESH TRAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1940, Page 6

FRESH TRAIL

4 HUNT FOR ESCAPED PRISONERS ABANDONED CAR FOUND. SIGNS OF PASSAGE THROUGH ROUGH COUNTRY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 4. An observant young woman who saw an abandoned Morris car about a mile from Silverdale today and reports of the thefts of petrol and clothing from two places at Massey during Thursday night gave the police a fresh trail of the four men who escaped from the Auckland prison on Tuesday night. Motor patrols and search parties have since been ranging far and wide. The car was the one stolen from Mr A. M. Jackson’s garage at Orakei Road, Remuera, early on Thursday morning and had evidently travelled over rough territory. When Mr Jackson saw his car at the central police station this afternoon he found the panels badly scratched as though the machine had been forced through scrub country. The exhaust pipe was bent and the un-der-carriage was coated with mud. The petrol tank was dry and on the flooring of the car were several sets of muddy footprints. A seven-years-old schoolboy, John Small, who lives on the Dairy FlatSilverdale Road about two miles south of Silverdale, said that while he was on his way to school at about 8 o’clock on Thursday morning he noticed three men get out of a small motor-cai- and look underneath the concrete bridge just before the by-pass to Kaukapakapa. He said they then looked into some scrub at the roadside, got into the car and drove down the by-pass. He was quite sure, he said, there were only three men in the car, one in the driving seat and two others in the back seat, and he saw sufficient of the driver’s face to describe him. He told his mother about the incident when he reached home that afternoon, but she attached little significance to it until this morning and when her husband later heard that Mr Jackson’s cai- had been stolen he advised the police. Just before mid-day a young woman living on a farm along the Kaukapakapa Road saw a small car abandoned at the roadside about 50 yards from the main road. One door was wide open as though someone had left hurriedly. When she reached Silverdale shortly afterwards she and a friend discussed the matter and the young woman copied from the Herald the number of Mr Jackson’s missing car. She returned to the spot where she saw the car and found it had two numberplates screwed together on the back, and one at the front. The front one corresponded with the number she had copied from the newspaper. She then turned the screws on the back bracket, lifted the top plate and found that the lower one also corresponded with that of the missing car. She notified the police shortly afterwards. Meanwhile there is very little change in the condition of the three warders who were assaulted and injured at the Auckland Prison on Tuesday night. Mr J. G. Crawford, aged 62, who was severely injured about the head, was reported by the Auckland Hospital to be still unconscious, and the condition of Messrs J. W. Scholium, aged 32, and A. Burgess, aged 43, both of whom had slight concussion and scalp wounds, were reported to be satisfactory.