ESCAPE CHARGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 124, 28 May 1942, Page 8

ESCAPE CHARGE

DASH FROM HOSPITAL

PRISONER FOR SENTENCE

Robert John Mann, aged 25, the prisoner who made a dash from a clinic at the Auckland Hospital on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 20, only to be recaptured the following morning, was brought before Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., in the Police Court to-day.

Pleading guilty to a charge of escaping from custody, Mann was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.

The evidence showed that Mann, who was committed to the Auckland prison on August 21, 1941, to serve a sentence of four years' imprisonment with hard labour, was taken to a clinic at the hospital at 4.55 p.m. on Wednesday of last week for treatment. He was accompanied by three other prisoners, in charge of Warders Foy and McKenzie. Given permission by the latter to go to a convenience, Mann darted around partition and escaped out of sight. Warder McKenzie said that as he was alone with the three other prisoners, he could not leave them to pursue Mann.

Detective-Sergeant F. Brady said he was in a police car with DetectiveSergeant P. Kearney patrolling Great North Road at 10 a.m. on May 21 when he saw Mann outside the pumping station at Western Springs. As soon as Mann saw them he ran into the grounds of the pumping station and jumped down a 10ft bank. Witness jumped down after him and held Mann until DetectiveSergeant Kearney put the handcuffs on him. Mann was arrested.