A report into the dramatic escape of a Canberra prisoner from a corrections vehicle last year has recommended a number of changes to the way both transfers and escapes are handled by ACT staff.
On July 9, 2021, a detainee from the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC), dubbed Detainee Z, told corrections staff he had swallowed a damaged battery, prompting them to have him taken to the Canberra Hospital for assessment.
He was handcuffed and departed the prison with two ACT Corrective Services escort officers seated either side of him in a Toyota Camry.
But while en route to the hospital, they were repeatedly rammed by a Jeep, until they were forced to stop near the Canberra shopping precinct of Manuka.
Footage of the incident, shows a passenger exiting the Jeep before it rams the corrections vehicle again, forcing all of the Camry's passengers, including Detainee Z, to exit the car.
Detainee Z then ran to the Jeep and climbed inside, before it drove away.
He was arrested a few hours later, with police saying he was found hiding in a roof in Canberra's north.
The female driver of the Jeep, dubbed Person A, was also later charged over the incident.
But the event prompted a review by the Office of the Inspector of Correctional Services (OICS), who has now made a number of recommendations after finding problems with the way some corrections staff responded to the escape, and issues with the suitability of the vehicle used to transfer the prisoner.
'Like something out of Grand Theft Auto'
Dinny McGettigan, whose dashcam recorded the incident in July last year, said he initially thought he was witnessing a "horrible road rage incident".
He said he followed the cars to wait and see if he could be of assistance to any victims of an attack, but was also wary of becoming a victim himself.
Mr McGettigan said when the Jeep drove away at high speed, it only narrowly missed his own car.
"It's hard to tell on the dashcam, because my car's quite big, but it really only missed the back of it by inches, maybe," he said.
"It seems like every police car in Canberra showed up after that."
Mr McGettigan said it was like nothing he had seen before and that he was "shaken up" afterwards.
"Straight away I thought it was something very weird happening," he said.
Secure vehicles must be used to transport detainees
In his report released on Tuesday, ACT Inspector of Correctional Services Neil McAllister made nine recommendations to the ACT Legislative Assembly in light of the incident.
Principle among them was that the Alexander Maconochie Centre ensure secure vehicles were used to transport detainees, unless under exceptional circumstances, such as when the detainee was attending a funeral, had a particular medical condition or was engaged in a pre-release program.
The report found the Toyota Camry used to transport the detainee was inadequate in size to hold three adults comfortably when staff must wear bulky personal protection equipment to transport potentially violent detainees.
About a year earlier, concerns had been raised about the use of Camry sedans as escort vehicles, which Mr McAllister said had not been heeded.
The report recommended using a vehicle that contained a locked pod for the detainee, separated from the escort officers.
Radios in the car weren't working: report
The report said the incident had also highlighted "gaps in training and procedures" to deal with secure escorts and escapes.
It detailed how when the officers in the car alerted their colleagues about the incident, 10 AMC staff members attended the scene, when only five had been directed to do so.
The report found that the rules around how to handle such an incident and who should respond were "unclear" to staff, and that the radios installed in the sedan had not been working on the day of the escape.
"OICS was told by one of the escort officers that the radio fitted in the Camry was not working so they had to rely on their personal radios," the report said.
Mr McAllister also said the policy around who may disclose to the public when an escape had occurred needed to be reviewed.
"As the incident unfolded, a number of staff apparently rang loved ones and friends to tell them about the incident, which resulted in a large number of calls to the AMC with callers asking about the incident generally or seeking information about whether their friend/loved-one was involved, injured, etc," the report stated.
Detainee discussed escape plan on phone before incident
The report also revealed that Detainee Z had made a call to Person A in the hours leading up to the escape, discussing the vehicle that would be used and what would happen later in the day if the escape was successful.
"In this call, Person A states the car is 'the best one I could have picked'.
"There is a vague conversation about dinner arrangements that night for Detainee Z’s mother. Detainee Z talks about going up to 'health' and possibly going to hospital and that he will call Person A before he goes up to health."
A short time later, Detainee Z informed staff he had ingested a battery, instigating the escape that would unfold that afternoon.
But the report found that while there were hints in this conversation of what was to come, prison calls were not monitored in real-time, and it was not obvious from the nature of the call that Detainee Z was planning an imminent escape.
"The review concludes that while the escape was not reasonably foreseeable by ACT Corrective Services, there are matters that need to be addressed by ACTCS to minimise the likelihood of incidents of this type occurring in the future," the report said.
Mr McAllister also praised the officers present at the time of the escape.
It was revealed that while the officers said they were grateful for the counselling support they had received in the wake of the incident, they felt it was "generic" rather than specific to the trauma they experienced.
The report recommended post-incident debriefing with a qualified professional and ongoing psychological treatment where it was found to be in the best interests of the staff member.
"There also needs to be more support options available to staff involved in traumatic incidents to assist them remaining at work or returning to work after sick leave arising from incidents," Mr McAllister said.
