REID, Neil.  Evening Post; Wellington, New Zealand. 18 June 1998:

Paremoremo Prison escaper Arthur William Taylor has a conviction for pointing a pistol at a Levin police officer and allegedly sent another officer bullets in the mail.

Paremoremo Prison escaper Arthur William Taylor has a conviction for pointing a pistol at a Levin police officer and allegedly sent another officer bullets in the mail.

Taylor, 41, who police sources say has a deep hatred of police, was one of four highly dangerous inmates who broke out of Paremoremo, 45km north-west of Auckland, on Sunday night.

He and fellow escapers Darryn Crowley, 26, Graeme William Burton, 27, and Matthew Solomon Thompson, 21, were noticed missing from the medium security unit during a routine patrol.

Taylor, a bank robber, and Crowley and Burton, both serving life for murder, are from the Wellington region.

Police sources say that as an 18-year-old, he pointed a pistol at a Levin officer.

The Post understands Taylor sent a Wellington police officer bullets in the mail after he was arrested in the early 1980s. He has spent much of his time in prison researching police procedure and law, and defended himself in court hearings.

Armed police have searched several properties of known associates of the trio in the region.

Inquiry head Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Bush, of Takapuna police, said a 40-year-old Howick man would appear in the North Shore District Court today charged with assisting the escapers.

He believed the four were still in New Zealand.

Police would continue to monitor houses in the Wellington region. He said there had been no confirmed sightings of the escapers.

Police are also searching for Zane Sutton who was picked up by a vehicle after cutting his way to freedom during a sports game at Christchurch’s Rolleston Prison on Tuesday.

A 17-year-old white supremacist skinhead with links to the Epitaph Riders gang, he is in the second year of a nine-year jail term for gang rape.

* The police armed offenders squad was called out to the Lower Hutt suburb of Kelson last night in the hunt for prison escaper Darryn Crowley. The squad was called out around 7.30 and cars leaving the suburb were checked.

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