BRIEF FREEDOM

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 826, 21 November 1929, Page 1

BRIEF FREEDOM

ATTEMPTED ESCAPE FROM MOUNT EDEN GAOL CAUGHT IN PLANTATION When approached yesterday the authorities at the Mount Eden Gaol refused to admit that an escape or attempted escape had taken place, and declined to give The incident would have remained unrecorded but for disclosures made by factory girls anct others in the vicinity, who witnessed the chase. ITis hand bleeding from contact with barbed wire. Frank Sockington, aged -*). was caught by armed warders on Monday morning after making an e scape from a prison gang at the Mount Eden gaol. Sockington enjoyed very brief liberty. He made his way from the prison to a wooden portiou of the ’ olonial Ammunition Company's proD *Tty. but was unable to leave his hiding place and was surrounded by parties of warders. Soekingtou made bis attempt when ’he prisoners were being paraded outride the walls of the gaol. He rushed 'tp the face of the quarry, clambered trough a barbed wire fence, and took iefuge in tho Colonial Ammunition Company's plantation. Pursuit was organised immediately, and a cordon was thrown round the Plantation. This placed Sockington ,a a hopeless position, and he was cornered after a thorough search among the trees. Covered by a warder’s rifle the prisoner surrendered without a struggle, and was escorted back to the prison under a strong guard. Sockington was sentenced in the for breaking and entering at \VoodviHf\ and after an attempt to break from the Mount Crawford Pr son he was transferred to Mount kflen. His conduct up to the beginbthsr of this week is said to have beun satisfactory.