Police still hunting jailbreak sidekicks
POLICE are still trying to track down the people who helped a group of Townsville prisoners escape custody, as it’s revealed what the inmates did during their brief stint of freedom.
On Monday evening, three prisoners walked off the Townsville Correctional Centre farm facility and were picked up in a vehicle that drove them from the Stuart area.
All three inmates – Les Noel Noble, Layne Rex Newman and Preston Donald Zane Quakawoot – have since been rearrested and placed back behind bars, but their accomplices are still at large.
Townsville District Acting Chief Superintendent Dave Miles said they suspected more than one person was involved in the escape.
“We are still making inquiries in relation to those people,” Chief Superintendent Miles said.
Newman was the first to be arrested on Tuesday night after allegedly running from a stolen Mazda on Gosper St. A 20-year-old Condon woman was arrested with him.
Noble was allegedly in the same car and ran from police, going to ground for three days, before handing himself in on Thursday morning.
Quakawoot was arrested at a house in Stuart on Wednesday morning, where police allege he was being protected by two women.
A 43-year-old Rasmussen woman and a 22-year-old woman from Ingham have both been charged over harbouring Quakawoot.
It’s understood the men didn’t leave Townsville and spent time with known associates in the area.
All three men have been placed back in the high-security prison, but it can be revealed one of the men has a history of escaping custody. In 2018, Quakawoot broke free from police officers transferring him to a Bundaberg watch-house.
His escape sparked a three-hour search that included police, drones, the dog squad and detectives.
Despite his history, Quakawoot was allowed to reside in the low-security prison area. Opposition spokesman for corrections Dale Last questioned how this was allowed to happen.
“How the prisoners are monitored and supervised … is not good enough,” Mr Last said. “Why was that prisoner in a low-security farm environment when he has a previous incident record of escaping custody?”
Queensland Corrective Services ignored questions about how a prisoner with a relevant history was allowed in a low-security area.
“Prior to being placed in a low-security facility such as a prison farm, all prisoners are subject to a detailed risk assessment where a range of factors are taken into consideration, such as sentence length, risk to the public and behaviour,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.