ON IMPULSE

Evening Star, Issue 24290, 3 September 1942, Page 4

ON IMPULSE

PRISONER'S ESCAPE FROM CUSTODY NO INCREASE OF SENTENCE (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Sept. 3. The prisoner, Clifford Douglas Keane, who escaped from custody immediately after he had been .sentenced in the Supreme Court recently to five years’ imprisonment, appeared to-day before Mr J ustico Fair for sentence, and pleaded‘for a realisation of the fact that he acted on impulse when suffering from a feeling of grievance concerning the long sentence. He said that to get everything cleaned up in order to make a clean start after serving his sentence he had fully confessed offences of which the police had no proof. “ 1 got a terrible shock, especially when 1 saw my wife in such a state. 1 am pleased that I didn’t get away, as I realise that would have meant further trouble.” Replying to the judge, Mr Cleal, for the Crown, said it was_ possible that some of the offences might not have been traced if prisoner had not confessed. Mr Justice Fair expressed the conviction that the escape was made on impulse, as stated by Keane. In the circumstances the court did not propose to declare him an habitual criminal or to increase his sentence. He would be sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, to be served concurrently with the sentences already imposed*