Guards at the Alexander Maconochie Centre gave escaped prisoners a two hour head start before telling police the men were missing, incident reports reveal.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Patrick McCurley, 28, and Jacob MacDonald, 21, fled the prison in September 2016 using a ladder to scale three fences in the space of ten minutes.
The reports, obtained by The Canberra Times under freedom of information laws, show the men escaped at 11.13pm on September 2 but guards did not realise they were missing until around 4.30am on September 3.
It took another two hours until ACT Policing was alerted to the escape at 6.20am, by which time the men had been missing for more than seven hours.
Guards first become suspicious when they noticed a ladder leaning against a prison fence during a routine perimeter check at 4.20am.
"When we arrived...[a fellow officer] said words to the effect of, 'What is this object, is it a ladder'," one guard detailed in their incident report.
"I observed it as well and asked [the officer] to stop the car to observe it clearly as it was raining heavily.
"I informed CO2 via the radio about the observation and requested him to attend the area immediately."
A spokesman for the Justice and Community Safety Directorate said guards identified which prisoners were missing before they called police.
"Once it was confirmed that detainees were missing and their identities confirmed, ACT Corrective Services then notified ACT Policing," he said.
"It is ACT Corrective Services' practice to notify police as soon as all necessary details are confirmed."
Another incident report detailed how the men may have used knowledge gleaned from their prison chores to plan the escape.
"[One detainee] works on grounds maintenance and there is a possibility that this escape was planned, due to the detainee being aware of construction behind the activities and laundry buildings."
McCurley and MacDonald were both inmates inside the prison's minimum security cottage and were able to flee the building by removing a window from its frame.
"Officers conducted searches of all areas and observed a window lying on the grass," one guard wrote.
"All pods were immediately checked confirming the above two detainees were not in the [compound]."
Security personnel were called in the aftermath of the escape to check if the prison's alarms had been activated or were even working at the time.
"At the conclusion of the perimeter check I was informed that [redacted] had not activated," wrote the guard responsible for monitoring surveillance systems.
"Other than [redacted] alarm activating I can say with certainty that no other alarms activated."
On Sunday it was revealed that a prison officer was stood down by the government pending investigation after the escape.
McCurley was arrested two days after the jail break, while MacDonald was found after eight days on the run, during which he managed to get his girlfriend pregnant.
It was the first successful escape from the prison, in the suburb of Hume, since it began taking inmates in 2009.
The ACT government has repeatedly refused to release information about the escape, citing security risks and the possibility that information could expose vulnerabilities at the prison.
An internal review - termed the Morison report - was commissioned by ACT justice minister Shane Rattenbury following the incident.
The review recommended stronger training and staff development as well as biannual whole-of-centre reviews to examine the prison's performance against the Healthy Prisons test.
It also recommended improved security management systems and improved management of detainee movements.
