DRAMATIC ESCAPE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 117, 21 May 1942, Page 5

DRAMATIC ESCAPE

PRISONER AT AUCKLAND DASH FROM HOSPITAL. (P.A.) Auckland, May 30. in a sensational dash througn the patients and scan at the clinic at the Auckland Hospital shortly oelore 5 p.m., a prisoner from the Auckland gaol who was attending lor treatment, made his escape from custody. A search which was instituted immediately by wardens and police was continued until a late nour, but failed lo locate the escapee. The prisoner, Robert John Mann, was one of four men brought to hospital for treatment under escort of a warder’. While they were awaiting attention in the waiting room, Mann [received permission from the warder !to enter a convenience inside the building and adjoining other rooms. A sudden commotion in the inner I rooms was the first indicaiion of tne (prisoner’s dush for freedom. Running through the women’s clinic amid a hubbub of voices, be disappeared through a doorway giving access to the hospital grounds. From that point |all trace of him was lost, and he is believed to have mingled quietly with other people in the grounds. With darknet- falling rapidly aad manv people returning homeward Gt that hour, the task of the police in locating ihe prisoner, who was attired In ordinary civilian dress, was mode more difficult Mann was serving a term of four years’ imprisonment for a series of breaking, entering and theft convictions, and was sentenced at the Supreme Court, Auckland, in August last.