Skip to main content
Home
  • The Legislative Assembly meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Assembly sit 16/04/2024
  • The Legislative Council meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Council sit 16/04/2024
  • The Public Administration meets on 08/04/2024 (10:00 AM)
    Committee meet 08/04/2024

Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 704 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 28 October 2021 by Dr D.J. Honey

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

BROOME REGIONAL PRISON — ESCAPE

704. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Corrective Services:

I refer to concerning reports from Broome of a prison inmate scaling a fence on Tuesday afternoon, who has been on the run since.

(1) With this prisoner yet to be detained, can the minister detail what threat, if any, the inmate poses to the community?

(2) Can the minister explain how the prisoner was able to escape from the prison?

(3) Can the minister detail how many of his prisoners are currently on the run or unaccounted for?

Mr W.J. JOHNSTON replied:

(1)–(3) As to the last question, of course I do not have any prisoners in my care, but the Commissioner of Corrective Services has quite a number. Only one of those is not in prison at the moment, and that is this person. In terms of whether he is dangerous, the member would have to ask the Western Australia Police Force because they are the people who are managing the campaign to return him to custody. Like all escaped prisoners, who knows how he will behave. I urge members of the public not to directly approach him but, rather, to ring the police immediately if they observe him. In respect of how he escaped, at the moment that is not entirely clear and I have not been given a detailed briefing on the exact manner of his escape. I understand there is a video of his escape. The man was a protection prisoner; that is, he could not mix with other prisoners and therefore he was in the women's exercise yard. There were no female prisoners in the yard at the time, but obviously he still had to exercise. Somehow or other, he scaled the external fence of the prison. That meant he had to go over razor wire. I understand that he was injured in the course of escaping over the razor wire. It is actually true that last year a female prisoner escaped from the same yard. That woman did a backflip off an air conditioning unit over the top of the razor wire onto the crank of the fence, which is an extraordinary athletic achievement. As I said, I have not yet seen the video of how this guy got out. Let me make it clear that he got over razor wire. If anybody wants to lose their lunch, they should watch a person caught in razor wire. It is not a pleasant experience. The fact that he got over razor wire is an extraordinary achievement. I will be very keen to see exactly how it occurred.