PRISONER RECAPTURED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20129, 26 December 1939, Page 5

PRISONER RECAPTURED

SEVEN WEEKS’ LIBERTY CHASE IN AUCKLAND DARING ESCAPEE (Trr Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Recognised by a warder from the Auckland gaol and pursued by a milk roundsman, an escaped prisoner was recaptured after seven weeks of liberty by Constable Breed in Kingsland shortly after 8 o'clock on Sunday morning. Pie was Raymond Patrick Letton, aged 33, who disappeared from Rangipo prison camp, Tokaanu, on November 5, and who was previously known to the Auckland police for "his daring escape from the cells a* the central station last January. When cycling to his home after a shift of duty a warder noticed a man in Kingsland whom he promptly recognised as Letton. When challenged the man ran. away, the warder on his bicycle overtaking him. A scuffle followed, Letton again eluding his pursuer and making away across the railway lineA passing milk roundsman, Mr. W. Taylor, was enlisted by the warder to keep the fugitive in sight while he summoned the assistance of the 'Kingsland police. Leaping several fences, Letton iran bn to Walters road and then, with his pursuer hard on his heels, lie doubled back towards the railway line. Shortly after, Constable Breed and the warder joined in the chase. The search became centred on thick scrub alongside the railway line near the Kingsland station, where the fugitive was eventually located. Before he could resist or make'a further attempt to escape he was seized and handcuffed by the constable and then taken to the central police station, Letton’s previous escape from the Auckland police cells last January before he was confined to Rangipo was of a highly daring nature. His first attempt to elude the constable who arrested him was unsuccessful, but later he gained his freedom from the cells by climbing a thin water pipe running up a 20ft. wall and breaking through the wire-netting screen at the top. He was rearrested in Wellington a month later.