Grieving with family
Prisoner escaped to go home after brother’s suicide
A MAN escaped from a Beechworth prison to grieve with his family over this brother’s suicide before handing himself in to the Geelong police station, a court has heard.
Billy Sperling, 25, pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday to one charge of escape from prison, after he fled the minimum security facility through a kitchen window at 11pm on Tuesday.
Two other Beechworth Correctional Facility inmates are also believed to have escaped through the window, and were still on the run yesterday after allegedly stealing a car.
Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Scott Bell said Sperling, who was serving a 15-month jail term for driving offences and breaching a corrections order, escaped the facility on Tuesday night before showing up at the station on Thursday.
He said Sperling had walked 10km before catching a lift with a truck driver and then hitchhiking with other motorists to see family in Ballarat to “grieve the unexpected death of his brother”.
Sperling’s lawyer, Simon Northeast, said his client was distraught after learning his older brother had suicided.
Mr Northeast said that after Sperling had made his way to Geelong on Thursday, his partner allowed him 15 minutes with his seven-month-old twins before she drove him to the Geelong police station where he handed himself in.
Magistrate Clive Alsop acknowledged Sperling’s family circumstance, and said by giving himself up it had saved an “enormous amount of money by the state” from a police search.
However he said a jail term was appropriate given the charge, and added two months to Sperling’s sentence, which means he will now be eligible for parole in July 2018.
Police were yesterday continuing to search for the other two men, Thomas Smith, 27, and Geoffrey Pennell, 34, who fled the correctional facility.
Fugitive Taskforce detectives believe Pennell may have been 500km away in the Warrnambool area overnight.
The two men then allegedly stole a blue 1988 Mercedes-Benz from the nearby town of Everton and disappeared.
Anyone experiencing personal difficulties can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.