The Country’s Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels has concluded that the guards were most likely asleep, giving three prisoners enough time to cut a path through the razor wire atop the Lusignan Prison fence and escape the facility before dawn Monday.
A massive hunt is on for the men. On the run are 23-year-old Travis Evan of ‘C’ Field Sophia, who was on remand for murder; 23-year-old Sudesh Dyal of Wales Backdam, West Bank Demerara, who was remanded on charges of break and enter and larceny and escaping from custody; and Dexroy Pollard, 29, also of Wales, who was charged with break and enter and larceny.
They were being kept in a holding bay of the prison; this area was created to keep prisoners from the Camp Street prison when it was burned down in July last year.
A review of footage from CCTV cameras revealed that the first prisoner went over the fence at 04:29 hrs and the other two made it over within another two minutes.
However, Samuels indicated that the prisoners “made a lot of efforts” to part the razor wire atop the fence to part a way so they could have scaled the fence safely.
Guard towers are positioned close to the areas where the men escaped.
“It is clear…that those ranks [guards] were not alert and I am forced to conclude that it was very likely that they were sleeping,” Samuels told reporters at his Brickdam, Georgetown office.
Together with Police, the prison service has deployed several search parties in Regions Four and Three, where the men are likely to be.
Those searches have so far come up blank.
The log is there show there was a change of guard at 01:00 hr and so the guards should “should have been more alert,” Samuels stated.
He said the area was well lit, as from the CCTV footage, “you could even see insects jumping in the grass.”
Samuel said while many ranks were on duty, five ranks were in close proximity.
“It went on for too long for them not to have observed,” if they were alert, Samuels noted.
When the ranks were questioned, Samuels said they had little or nothing to say.
The Police and Prison officers were in close proximity to where the men escaped have been placed under close arrest.
