DARTMOOR MUTINY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 49, 28 January 1932, Page 7

DARTMOOR MUTINY

GRIM PICTURE OF INTERIOR.

RESCUERS GATHER NEAR GAOL,

SEARCH OF LONDON’S UNDER-

WORLD.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

LONDON, Jan. 26.

Although the troops were withdrawn this morning from Prince Town prison, two companies of the Wiltshire Regiment, including machine-gunners, were’Stationed at Crown Hill all day in readiness, and lorries were provided to hurry them to Dartmoor if necessary. This precaution was regarded as essential because of a heavy fog on the moors.

The police are patrolling barricaded approaches to-night, and the prison is again flood-lighted. Warders are still attending the live stock and carrying out other, farm duties.

Mr H. Du Parcq, K.C., Recorder of Bristol, has arrived and has opened the inquiry. The convicts expect to be permitted to give evidence. A grim picture of the interior of Dartmoor is provided by a police official relieved after 48 hours’ duty. He says that conditions have been terrible. “Apparently every convict in the two five-storey buildings, lined with cells, is incessantly either banging on his cell door or stamping on the floor, 'V said the official. “A handful of warders are anxiously pacing the corridors, realising that they have to' deal with the scum of the earth. The ringleaders rounded up by the police and placed in the punishment cells include a dozen of the worst desperadoes I have ever seen. There were terrible possibilities at the time of the uprising. The mutiny proved that weapons, including ten butchers! knives, pickliandles, and firebars, had been hidden under the flagstones of the buildings allotted to prisoners classed as dangerous. “The experience of Sunday when 40 police scattered 300 shows that the convicts are abject cowards; nevertheless there was a tense atmosphere last night when we heard that 100 lags from London’s underworld had gathered in the neighbourhood and were planning a rescue. We saw the convicts signalling to each other from the windows, and all night we heard uncanny hoarse whispering and muttering with, which the whole prison was rumbling, but lbecause the convicts were talking so guardedly it was impossible to detect the offenders. Twepty police on duty in the prison were given loaded revolvers and assisted in patrolling the cells. The presence of the troops greatly eased the situation, and I believe the worst is over.” Scotland Yard haß begun, a search ot London’s underworld to discover the extent to which well-known criminals were implicated in the raid on Dartmoor. It has been ascertained that several are missing from their usual haunts. . , A released convict states that the plot to escape was hatched inside the prison, though the knowledge that mcii were waiting outside with money and motor cars inflamed the convicts. The discoveries in the cells included grap-pling-irons with ropes attached to assist- escapes. A prison official says he does not anticipate any further trouble inside, but the authorities are not taking any chances. Further developments are likely outside, and the police, in conjunction with the military, are dealing with them.