WARDER ASSAULTED

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 111, 8 February 1928, Page 13

WARDER ASSAULTED

PRISONER FOUND GUILTY. Bi Telegraph.—pbess Assioiation. Auckland, February 7. In his charge to the Grand Jury at the opening of the criminal sessious, Mr. J ustice Reed commented upon two features. firstly the absence of any cases of negligently driving motor-cars, so as to cause death, aud secondly, the prevalence of sexual cases, which sonstituted from a third to half of the criminal calendar. This was regrettable, but fortunately only one case involved violence. The Grand Jury returned true bills iu all cases. As a sequel to his escape from the Mount Eden gaol on December 7, AVilliam Henry Grant was charged with assaulting a warder, John Booth. The prisoner was engaged in the bakehouse, and it was alleged he struck the warder on the head with a trestle of wood, rendering him unconscious. James Dickison, superintendent of the prison, who gave evidence, was questioned by the prisoner whether suffiicent measures were aken to prevent escape from the bakehouse. The superintendent said there were no bars across the windows of the bakehouse, but he considered a stiff wire was sufficient.

“Even a bird will pick at the wires of its cage.” commented Grant. The prisoner, in addressing the jury, sought to show that it was not feasible he should assault the warder, who made his round every half-hour, when ho had every facility to escape when the warder was absent from the locality, as there was only a thin wire between him and the yards. Giving what he described as the true version of the affair, Grant said that while another prisoner engaged in the bakehouse was asleep, he climbed up to the window with a view to surmounting an intervening wall. While on the point of liberty. Booth arrived and said: "Who is up there?” Prisoner said he did not reply until Booth threatened to shoot, when prisoner fell on him. He then escaped, knowing Booth would raise the alarm.

In summing up His Honour remarked that pith some criminals vanity and a desire for publicity prompted them into telling fantastic stories. In any case, accused had admitted that he was the cause of injuries to the warder, and that the happening could scarcely tie accidental. The jury returned a verdict of guilty but without malice. Sentence was deferred until Saturday.