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.