Prisoner captured just three hours after escaping custody

An escaped prisoner who hid in a City residence after going on the run on Thursday morning was recaptured just three hours later, leaving the homeowner in whose house he was found feeling relieved, though shaken.

Robbery accused Mario Austin, 31, previously from Blackman’s Tenantry, St Joseph, escaped custody around 9:45 p.m. when he was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

A statement from the police in the morning said he absconded while receiving medical treatment, but a release issued by the QEH in the evening refuted the claim. It said that while the Barbados Prison Service bus is scheduled to bring prisoners to the healthcare facility for treatment “the prisoner in question was neither treated at nor entered the facility”, and had actually got away while he was being transported to the hospital.

“The Queen Elizabeth Hospital security team responded to an incident where a prison bus collided with a tree on the QEH compound. Soon after, it was discovered that a prisoner escaped from the bus, on foot, a few minutes before the collision, and was being pursued by prison officers,” the  QEH’s Communications Specialist Shane Sealy said, thanking the hospital’s in-house security officers for responding promptly to the situation to ensure the safety of patients, staff and visitors.

Public Affairs and Communications Officer at The Barbados Police Service,  Inspector Rodney Inniss had earlier said officers were alerted around 9:45 a.m. about the escape, and police and prison officers went in search of Austin neighbouring communities.

The remand inmate’s time on the run was short-lived, however, as he was captured three hours later – just before 1 p.m. – at a house in Combermere Street, St Michael.

The homeowner, who has been living at that address for the past 32 years, recalled that she was walking towards her daughter when she saw “this person standing right in front my place”. She said she demanded that he tell her who he was.

“He tell me, ‘I just want a phone call, I am not a bad person. I just want a phone call. My father is a police’. And all my daughter is telling me is ‘don’t panic, don’t panic’,” she recalled.

The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she continued to demand that the stranger “get out of my place”. She said she then saw officers passing and as her daughter motioned to them to come to the house, the prisoner was telling her, “shush, don’t call nobody”.

Austin was subsequently apprehended.

The visibly shaken woman said it was the first time she had ever seen Austin.

When the ordeal was over, she told reporters: “I feel relieved because, to tell you the truth, I didn’t feel safe.” 
(FW)