DASH FOR FREEDOM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 26

DASH FOR FREEDOM

BORSTAL INMATES ESCAPE A PURSUIT AND CAPTURE • Press Association. INVERCARGILL, To-day. Run to earth at the Dunedin end of the Balclutha bridge at 7 p.m., on Friday, Maxfield, one of the two boys who escaped from the Borstal Institute, made frantic efforts to avoid capture, by jumping on the running board of a car going south, but was observed by a warder in a police car, which was just passing at the time. The warder jumped out and ran along the bridge and grabbed Maxfield, who submitted quietly to arrest. The revolver which he carried is said to have been fully loaded.

1 Two escapes, . which were almost : simultaneous, occurred at about ten 1 o’clock on Thursday morning. The two * concerned . are Herbert Maxfield, aged ’ 18, who was, sentenced, at the Wellingi ton Supreme Court on July 10, 1925, 1 to three years at the Borstal for break - . ing, entering, and theft, and Charles 1 Newman, aged 17 years, who was sen- ; tenced at the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court on January 9, 1926, to three years } at the Borstal for* theft, i Maxfield crossed a retaining wall, 1 and dived into the estuary. An officer L returned to the institute to report, but ; in the meantime w'ord had been re--1 ceived that Maxfield had broken into ' the residence of Mr. McKenzie, of [ Hensley Street, and, with the help of a revolver, stolen a shit of clothes, i These he put on, and left his prison clothes, with the exception of his boots, [ behind him in. a bathroom. Information- was then given to the superintendent that Newpian was intending to egcape at the same time, and he accordingly dispatched an officer to Otarara, where Newman was working in the bush. When the officer arrived, the party of prisoners was mustered, and it was immediately discovered that Newman was missing. The Borstal superintendent and police were notified by telephone at 5.30 o’clock on Thursday evening that a suspicious-looking character, answering to the description of Newman, had been seen at Otarara, and a party was immediately sent out to scour the bush. Subsequently Maxfield commandeered a motor-cycle in Hensley Street. After he had hidden for some time in a patch of scrub, the motor-cycle would not start, and, pursued by warders, he (threw it aside and went off on foot. Nothing further was heard of him until this morning, when word was received that,he had been seen in Kennington at 5.30 a.m., in difficulties with a touring car, and had been assisted to repair the damage by a resident who did not know who he was. Maxfield stole two old number-plates from the house of his helper, and set off in a northerly direction on the main road. The police then received w*ord that the car in which Maxfield had been seen in Kennington had crashed into a bridge at Balclutha, and was lying smashed on the bridge. Maxfield is said to have presented a revolver at the head of the driver of another car which also collided with the bridge through the erratic driving of the escapee. Maxfield was seen on ioot|;

making toward the open country between Balclutha and Milton, and was followed * It is believed that Newman is still in the vicinity, of Invercargill.