In the case of Trevor Edward Nash, central figure in a £20,000 payroll robbery in Auckland in November 1956, who escaped from Mount Eden Prison in February 1961 after serving less than four years of a 10-year sentence, it took the police six months to recapture him, and then only as a result of the astuteness of an Australian detective who recognised him, despite a disguise, in a Melbourne street. The police search in New Zealand extended from Auckland to the Bluff, and at least one innocent man was apprehended for questioning. But all the while Nash was out of the country, and, when arrested in July, he was found to be in possession of a substantial amount of the proceeds of the robbery. How he managed to leave New Zealand has never been determined. When he was finally arrested and locked up in a Melbourne cell, his laconic reaction was, “God, you wouldn't read about it”.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.