ESCAPEE’S STORY

Hokitika Guardian, 16 July 1928, Page 4

ESCAPEE’S STORY

DISCREDITED BY PRISONS HEAD

(By Telegraph—-Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July M. The Controller-General of Prisons, Mr Dallard, in a reference to the escaper prisoner, Buckley’s story, said: “It is not at all unusual for escapees to concoct some such fantastic story in mitigation of their offence of breaking prison, particularly when they find that the net of the law is closing round them. Buckley’s story is too thin to bear analysis, and it is hardly wide enough to justify his partner in escaping too. He says that lie escaped the night following the refusal of the prison authorities to allow him to return to the prison after his eye had been treated by a specialist. Such a sudden determination to escape does not coincide with careful planning for some weeks, including the manufacture of skeleton keys to fit the gaol grills some considerable time before the alleged accident to the eye happened. The story regarding the eye Trouble is a clever fabrication. Buckley complained of eye trouble, and lie was taken to the Prison Dispensary, where a doctor and" the dispenser examined his eye and could discover no foreign substance, The dispenser turned for a moment to procure some lotion to remove the inflammation that was caused through the nibbing of the eye, when Buckley produced in the palm of his hand three pieces of glass as large as sugar crystals, which obviously could never have been near liis eye. He continued to complain of trouble, and was sent to the hospital for a specialist examination. Buckley’s whole story is merely written for the purpose of enlisting public sympathy.’'