Times
21 NOV 1967
201
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Inspector Frank Knight, of the Hongkong police, who was abducted into China 36 days ago, speaking at a press conference after his escape.
KIDNAPPED BRITON ESCAPES FROM CHINESE
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT-Hongkong, Nov. 20
Inspector Frank Knight, the British police officer who was kid- napped from Hongkong in a bor- der incident, escaped from China today. He had been held in soli- tary confinement for 36 days.
He reappeared on the British side of the frontier tired and dirty after an 11-hour walk from a Chinese Army hostel five miles from the frontier where he had been held prisoner.
He had no complaint to make of the way in which he had been treated.
He said that at first he had thought it his duty as a police officer to leave it to the Hongkong authorities to get him released. "But I got a bit impatient. I did not like being locked up in a room for 36 days."
Guards evaded
At 7.45 last night he got out of a back window and evaded two guards who were supposed to be on duty. No one tried to follow him, probably --he said-because he had fixed his mosquito net to make it look as if he was in bed. In this deception he was helped by the poor quality of the electric light.
He spent the next 11 hours crawl- ing through ditches and dodging Chinese border patrols. At one point he had to lie low for 45 minutes, waiting for a single sentry to move on.
At the border he swam two rivers, broke through a barbed wire fence and finally crawled back through a drainpipe into British territory.
The journey had been made bare- foot and once he had got back to the colony he found a woman farmer
who gave him a pair of sandals. Ironically he had to wait three- quarters of an hour before he found an Army vehicle which gave him a lift to a police station.
Mr. Knight, 35-year-old Essex man, lost more than a stone in weight while in captivity, but he said that he had dieted deliberately because he had beeen overweight when kid- napped.
He said that he had had nothing to do and for the first 12 days he had not been allowed out of his room. "The Chinese soldiers promised that I should be at peace and completely safe in my room."
Trade confusion
This restriction was eventually lifted and he was permitted a 30- minute exercise period after each meal. He had not been indoctrina- ted and not even harshly interrogated. From the start the Chinese had made it clear that his abduction was unin- tentional and that he would not be kept prisoner indefinitely.
In the past 24 hours there have been two incidents on the frontier with China. Last night a Chinese civilian fired two rifle shots into. British territory without causing any damage; at dawn today a Chinese villager was kidnapped from British territory as he was working his oyster beds.
From Canton comes news that the Chinese have stopped all sales at the autumn trade fair, a big international exhibition in the Chinese trade calen- dar. They have had to postpone all | negotiations with foreign businessmen at the fair because of the confusion caused by the devaluation of sterling. Reliable sources in Canton say that
the Chinese have promised to honour all the contracts signed so far during the fair-almost all of them in ster- ling-but that any further contracts will have to take into account the new value of the pound.
In Hongkong the Chinese-language press of almost every shade of politi- cal opinion has condemned the Hongkong Government's decision to follow Britain and devalue the colony's currency.
Mr. Knight telephoned last night from Hongkong to his father, 77- year-old Mr. George Knight, of Grove Gardens. Dagenham, Essex, to say that he was safe and well and would write with more details later.
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