A PRISONER who was on the run for almost three weeks escaped from a minimum security jail by walking from Glen Innes to Armidale.
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Paul Reginald Dunn is now being held in the maximum security wing of Cessnock prison after his escape from the Glen Innes Correctional Centre on January 27.
The 36-year-old appeared via video link in Armidale Local Court this week for sentencing after pleading guilty to the charge of inmate escape lawful custody.
Aboriginal Legal Service solicitor Nick Forrest told the court Dunn became distressed in custody when he was told a family member had been refused bail.
"There was no planning involved," he said.
“One day he simply decided he was going to walk to Armidale.
“It took him longer to walk to Armidale than he thought … about three days.”
Mr Forrest acknowledged it was a significant escape but said by the time his client made it Armidale a family member had been moved on, so he didn’t resist when police came knocking for him at a house in the early hours of February 15.
”There was no fight, there was no contest … at that point he accepted responsibility,” he said.
Mr Forrest said his client had had a troubled upbringing.
“He left school at the age of 14 … and started hanging out with the wrong people and commenced drinking at that age,” he said.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Cheryl Hall said police tracked down Dunn in an Armidale home because of community information.
“It certainly was that police had to go and locate him...it wasn't that he handed himself in,” she told the court.
”He was certainly given an opportunity by Community Corrections [to go into minimum security].
“A lot of prisoners would hope to get to Glen Innes … he's taken advantage of that.”
Magistrate Michael Holmes said Dunn was “free to his own validity for 20 days”.
“The community had been warned in relation to the fact there had been an escapee,” he said.
“The purposes of imprisonment is to ensure you are kept isolated.
The cost to the community in trying to locate him, I would hate to think the cost of that.
- Magistrate Michael Holmes
“The cost to the community in trying to locate him, I would hate to think the cost of that.” Dunn was sentenced to an extra 12 months behind bars for the escape.