ESCAPED PRISONERS

Evening Star, Issue 23699, 5 October 1940, Page 10

ESCAPED PRISONERS

YOUNG WOMAN AND SCHOOLBOY PUT POLICE ON TRAIL ABANDONED GAR

[Per United Press Association.]

AUCKLAND, October 4,

An observant young woman who saw an abandoned car about a mile from Silverdale to-day, and had read the reports of thefts of petrol and clothing from two places at Massey during Thursdav night, gave the police a fresh trail of four men who escaped from Auckland Prison on Tuesday night. Motor patrols and search parties have since been ranginc far and wide. The car was the one stolen from Mr A. M. Jackson’s garage at Orakoi road, in Rcnmcra, 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 that the panels were badly scratched, as though the machine ; had been forced through scrub country.. The exhaust pipe was bent, and the undercarriage was coated with mud. The petrol tank was dry, and on the flooring of the car were several sets of muddy footprints. A seven-year-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, be noticed three men get out of a small motor car and look underneath the concrete bridge just before the by-pass to Knukapakapa. He said they then looked into some scrub at the' roadside. They then got into the car and drove down the by-pass. Ho was quite sure, he said, that there were only three men in the car—one in the drivin ; scat and two others in the back seat —and he saw sufficient of the driver’s face to describe him. Ho 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 car had been stolen he advised the police. Just before midday a young woman living on a farm along the Kankapakapa saw a smalPcar abandoned at the roadside about 50yds 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 dismissed the matter, and the young woman copied from the ‘ New Zealand Herald ’ the number of Mr Jackson’s missing car. She returned to the spot whore she saw the car. and found that it had two number plates screwed together on the back and one at the front. The front one corresponded with the number she had copied from the newspaper. She turned the screws on the back bracket, lifted the top plate, and found that the lower one also corresponded with that of the missing ear. 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 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 Mr J. W. Scholium, aged 32, and Mr A. Burgess, aged 43, both of whom had slight concussion and scalp wounds, was reported to be satisfactory.

SEARCH STILL FRUITLESS

ANOTHER GAR GLUE [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, October 5. The search for the escaped prisoners continues. The police are concentrating largely on the Silverdale and Albany districts. A further car is missing, the vehicle having been taken from Mr H. S. Small’s garage one mile north of Silverdale.

The condition of the injured warders is unchanged.