ESCAPEE SHOT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 173, 15 March 1932, Page 7

ESCAPEE SHOT

MADE DERISIVE GESTURE AT HIS GAOL WARDERS. BRISBANE, Saturday.. Although the young South Australian escapee, Erpest Albert Richards, who was recaptured during the week after two months' freedom, expressed satisfaction that he had been caught outside South Australia "because he might have heen shot oji sight there," he received bullets in his hand and leg when he attempted to escape from Boggo Road gaol to-day. Richards was serving 10 years when he escaped from Yatala gaol on New Year's Day. His attempt this afternoon was made about 4 o'clock, when he was walking- quietly ip the exercise yard. Richards pulled up a 20ft length of gas piping, with which he levered off a hardwood paling from the stockade fence, making an eight-inch aperture, through which he squeezed. He ran across the outside yard, a distance of about 10 feet, to the 23ft high outer wall. Bending the piping into the form of a crook, he reached with it to the top pf tfie wall and pqlled hims.elf up. Standing astride the parapet, he thumhed hjs nose at the wardej? in the watch-tower. The warder raised his rifle, hut it jammed. Snatching his pevolver from his holster, he fired, and hit Richqrds in the right hand. Runs Wqunded. This did not stop Richards, who pulled the piping up after him, and quickly swinging it to the outer side of the wall, slid down it to the ground. As the warder continued to fire, Richards ran across the road to a 15ft cutting. There again he stopped and made dlerisiye gestures at four warders, who by now were racing after him. He then disappeared down the cutting. One of the warders fell down the cqtting, hut sighted Richards as he fell. Without waiting to rise, the warder fired, the buliet finding its mark in the fleshy part of Richards' left leg. Richards, however, stumbled on, and managed, despite his injuries, to climh three 5-foot fences. Eventually he found shelter in a fowl-run. This was his undoing, for warders quickly surrounded and recaptured him. 4 He was taken to. the gail hospital, where he was treated and placed under a strong guard. Between 1925 a?ld 1930 spven qr eight prisoners escaped from Yatala. iQf. these, three were shot dead and several others wounded.