POLICE SEARCH SCRUB

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1030, 22 July 1930, Page 10

POLICE SEARCH SCRUB

HUNTING FOR ESCAPED PRISONER THEFT OF SAUSAGES Following an early morning telephone message that a suspicious looking man had been seen loitering about the Westmere Estate, detectives have conducted a thorough search of the scrub about Cox’s Creek. It was thought that the man might be Francis Gomez, a prisoner at the Mount Eden Gaol, who escaped from the Auckland Hospital early on Sunday morning. COLOUR was lent to that opinion by the fact that some hungry wanderer broke into the butcher’s shop of Caddy Bros., at 122 West Eud Road, Westmere, some time between last night and this morning, and stole six pounds of sausages. The front door of the shop, which was not very substantial, was burst open. Nothing was taken but the sausages and the backdoor key, which the thief thoughtfully pocketed before leaving, evidently with the intention of returning at some future date. The detective who had the unpleasant task of struggling through the wet clay in the Cox’s Creek hush found no traces of anybody having been in hiding, but is convinced that the man who w r as seen was not Gomez. The Westmere loiterer had been seen about for several days, and Gomez had been missing since Sunday morning only. Gomez was on parole while being treated at the hospital for an injury to one of his eyes. He broke his parole and left the hospital after stealing clothes belonging to another inmate.

He is a motor-driver by occupation, and is 30 years of age. He is sft sin iu height, and has blue eyes aud a fresh complexion. His hair is brown. At the time of his escape he had no teeth, having left his artificial denture behind. CAR STILL MISSING Nothing has yet been heard of the two-seater motor-car which disappeared between Saturday night and Sunday morning. The car is owned by Mr. G. E. Hunter, of 331 Great South Road, Ellerslie. and is a 1928 model Buick painted green. It bears the registration number 7.795, and the top half of the windscreen is broken. When it was discovered that the car was missing, the police were of the opinion that Gomez, having been a motor-driver, had made his way to the south in it. On several charges of breaking and entering and theft, Gomez was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Wellington on February 4, 1929.