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Friday, July 11, 2025

Min­utes six months be­fore shows...

Prisons execs told of jail break plan

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20160326

Of­fi­cial min­utes from an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing which took place at the Prison's Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Phillip Street, Port-of-Spain, on Jan­u­ary 27, 2015, has re­vealed that pris­ons of­fi­cials were aware of plans for a jail break by in­mates at the Port-of-Spain prison. The T&T Guardian has in its pos­ses­sion a copy of the min­utes. But while the ex­ec­u­tives were aware of the es­cape plan, they failed to put se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in place to pre­vent it or to alert the au­thor­i­ties.

Six months lat­er, on Ju­ly 24, peo­ple in the city were on edge af­ter the prison break ac­tu­al­ly took place. With hand­guns and a grenade, three men broke free from Port-of-Spain prison in a dra­mat­ic episode that left a po­lice of­fi­cer mur­dered, a pris­ons of­fi­cer wound­ed, two of the es­capees killed, and an­oth­er one on the run for hours be­fore be­ing killed by a no­to­ri­ous gang in Laven­tille. Three pris­ons of­fi­cers were lat­er sus­pend­ed. In the min­utes, un­der para­graph 4.0 la­belled Se­cu­ri­ty, sub­head­ing the 'Al­leged Es­cape Plan', it was re­vealed that As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er (William) Alexan­der re­port­ed that a phone call was re­ceived which in­di­cat­ed that four in­mates were plan­ning to es­cape in a car at the car park.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­utes, "Mr Alexan­der re­port­ed that a phone call re­ceived by the gate-keep­er POSP in­di­cat­ed that four in­mates are plan­ning to es­cape in a car at the car park.

"He added that col­lab­o­ra­tion with ex-agen­cies sug­gest­ed that the call came from with­in the prison, a phone was seized and be­ing checked."

The doc­u­ment re­vealed that se­nior of­fi­cers who at­tend­ed the meet­ing in­clud­ed for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Con­rad Bar­row, deputy com­mis­sion­ers Ronald Mor­gan and Ster­ling Stew­art (now com­mis­sion­er), as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­ers William Alexan­der, Michael Walk­er, Ce­cil Duke and Chan­der Sinanan, and se­nior su­per­in­ten­dents Ger­ard Wil­son, Dane Clarke, Thomas Es­pinoza, Fize Khan and Den­nis Pul­chan.

There was no note or men­tion in the min­utes of what mea­sures they in­tend­ed to put in place to deal with the pos­si­ble jail break.

How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the jail break, three pris­ons of­fi­cers were sus­pend­ed–Lancelot Duntin, Mervyn Pierre and Lovell Wolfe. The men are ac­cused of dis­cred­it­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of the Prison Ser­vice by fail­ing to act prompt­ly on in­struc­tions con­tribut­ing to the es­cape of the men, plus the shoot­ing death of po­lice of­fi­cer PC Sher­man May­nard who re­spond­ed to the jail break.

And spear­head­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan, one of the ex­ec­u­tives who was present at the Jan­u­ary 27 meet­ing in which the es­cape plan was dis­cussed.

When told about the doc­u­ment, the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pressed dis­gust over the cir­cum­stances and called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to why the ex­ec­u­tives failed to act even though they had the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Ger­ard Gor­don said he was very sur­prised to hear about the min­utes.

One of the of­fi­cers, who spoke to the T&T Guardian on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said that even though se­nior of­fi­cials were aware of the plan they did not dis­cuss this with the ju­nior of­fi­cers on du­ty at the prison.

"Ju­nior of­fi­cers were not made aware of it, in­clud­ing the ones who were sus­pend­ed," one of­fi­cer said.

Stew­art: Pris­ons probe com­plet­ed, sent to Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ster­ling Stew­art said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Prison Ser­vice has been com­plet­ed and was for­ward­ed to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

He said he did not have any in­for­ma­tion on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion or where it had reached.

"A de­ci­sion was al­ready made and a de­ci­sion tak­en. This is a crim­i­nal mat­ter and any­one cul­pa­ble will face the full brunt of the law and what is re­vealed," he said.

When asked about the ex­ec­u­tive's dis­cus­sion on the es­cape, Stew­art said: "We keep ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings all the time and any in­for­ma­tion we come across we dis­cuss."

He said the ex­ec­u­tive will ad­dress any in­for­ma­tion as a con­cern.

"There will al­ways be talk or ru­mors of an es­cape or threat to of­fi­cers on hit list. All of this would hap­pen and if we have in­for­ma­tion we have to in­ves­ti­gate to know its cred­i­bil­i­ty. We are deal­ing with a high volatile en­vi­ron­ment and we will con­tin­ue to re­view the ev­i­dence base to treat with the sit­u­a­tion. Any­one would want to es­cape from the prison," he said.

Dil­lion: Pris­ons have to an­swer that

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon said he did not have any up­dates on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion which start­ed eight months ago. "If you have in­for­ma­tion on that, I would ap­pre­ci­ate that and if they knew about it," he said. When asked why noth­ing was done by the pris­ons ex­ec­u­tive who had the in­for­ma­tion, Dil­lon said: "I don't know, they have to an­swer that."

What took place

Last week, pris­ons sources said the three sus­pend­ed men were on­ly in "charge" that day and were in no way near the es­capees who were in the vis­it­ing room.

A state­ment tak­en from a pris­ons of­fi­cer, sources said, stat­ed that around 12.05 pm on Ju­ly 27, an in­mate warned se­nior pris­ons of­fi­cers that the two men were "plan­ning some­thing."

"In the prison, if a pris­on­er give you in­for­ma­tion on some­thing you take it se­ri­ous," the of­fi­cer said.

Pris­ons of­fi­cers said that about 20 min­utes lat­er, around 12.25 pm, one of the sus­pend­ed of­fi­cers re­ceived a call warn­ing them that two of the pris­on­ers–Has­san Atwell and Christo­pher 'Mon­ster' Sel­by should not be to­geth­er in the vis­it­ing room. But it was "al­ready too late and both of the men were down there al­ready. They did not even give a rea­son.

"We can't just stop a man from hav­ing his vis­it. We were think­ing it must be some fight be­tween the in­mates or maybe they want to stab some­body. We were not look­ing for a gun or es­cape," the of­fi­cer said.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer said, "The pris­ons of­fi­cers who were to search the men are still on du­ty and un­ac­count­able."

State­ments tak­en from eye­wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing in­mates, re­vealed that an in­mate saw the es­capees bran­dish­ing firearms while in­side the prison, one of the of­fi­cers said.

"The men (es­capees) were wait­ing in the vis­it­ing area and did not get the can­teen bag. So they did not get the firearms there. They did not go out­side. The men there came from with­in the main prison with the gun. The man (pris­ons of­fi­cer) who's re­spon­si­ble for their es­cape still work­ing in the prison."

How­ev­er, it is un­clear why the es­capees were not searched and the weapons dis­cov­ered be­fore they were brought in­to the vis­it­ing area to see rel­a­tives.

Of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to move quick­ly but the in­mates were al­ready to­geth­er in the vis­it­ing room. They then made their es­cape, he said.

One of the pris­ons of­fi­cers said it was brought to his at­ten­tion by se­nior pris­ons of­fi­cers that soon af­ter the jail break, a high-pow­ered meet­ing was held with three for­mer min­is­ters of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

"They were told (name with­held) to sus­pend sev­en pris­ons of­fi­cers. It didn't mat­ter who.

"We want jus­tice. We heard that they were push­ing the sus­pen­sion be­fore the elec­tions.

"They bar­gain­ing with of­fi­cers' lives and sit­ting in po­si­tion," an of­fi­cer said.

THE ES­CAPEES

Al­lan 'Scan­ny' Mar­tin, Has­san Atwell and Christo­pher 'Mon­ster' Sel­by es­caped from the prison.

Pris­ons of­fi­cer Leon Rouse was shot and wound­ed. PC Sher­man May­nard was killed in the fra­cas.

Pris­on­er Mar­tin was killed, and Has­san Atwell was killed by mem­bers of the Rastac­i­ty gang af­ter hid­ing out in Port-of-Spain.

Sel­by, 30, sur­ren­dered him­self to of­fi­cers at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion hours lat­er.

He was sub­se­quent­ly charged with ten of­fences in­clud­ing the mur­der of PC May­nard.


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