REMEMBER WHEN

POLICE were left red-faced after a major bungle allowed a convicted murderer and twotime prison escapee to walk out of Beenleigh’s watch-house.

Adam Keith Vickers assumed the identity of fellow prisoner Mark Russell Schoker. Vickers forged Schoker’s signature and walked out of the watch-house before disappearing and sparking a full-scale manhunt.

Police Minister Terry Mackenroth told the Bulletin he was “disgusted” by the lax security and called for an inquiry.

“I have already asked the Police Commissioner for a report into how he could possibly have such lax security in watchhouses or procedures that would allow someone to walk out in the first place,” he said.

Gold Coast acting regional crime co-ordinator, Inspector Kev Matthews, said prisoners did not need to show proof of identification to be released from Beenleigh watch-house.

Vickers was serving a life sentence at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre at Wacol for bashing an elderly man to death in 1987.

Vickers was recaptured but again escaped from custody at Borallon Correctional Centre in 1994. He was last known as a prisoner of the Woodford Correctional Centre. His whereabouts were last listed in the press in 1997 when he and “Postcard Bandit’’ Brendan Abbott were the first prisoners to be moved into the new jail.

Meanwhile, a schoolgirl who dreamt of being a choreographer was expelled because she performed in a police youth club ballet instead of attending a speech night. Kelly Weston’s mother Cheryl was angry at the ‘heavy-handed’ attitude of Somerset College.