Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

On Ju­ly 20, 2025, Guardian Me­dia re­vis­it­ed the 2015 Port-of-Spain prison break, seek­ing an­swers in­to the es­cape that shocked the na­tion and the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion that re­mains un­re­solved ten years lat­er. This re­port ex­am­ines the events of that day and the en­dur­ing im­pact on those in­volved.

Ex­plo­sions were heard from be­hind the prison walls, and in a mat­ter of mo­ments, the or­di­nary be­came the unimag­in­able. Three in­mates—Al­lan “Scan­ny” Mar­tin, Has­san Atwell, and Christo­pher “Mon­ster” Sel­by—armed with two pis­tols and a hand grenade, over­pow­ered prison staff and es­caped.

For Lancelot Duntin, then a Prison Of­fi­cer II on du­ty that day, the mem­o­ry re­mains vivid.

“I al­ways thought the prison was one of the safest places to work,” Duntin told Guardian Me­dia. He had joined the ser­vice in 1990, when such at­tacks were un­heard of. “It was just a gov­ern­ment job at the time,” he said. “That type of vi­o­lence against prison of­fi­cers sim­ply didn’t hap­pen.”

Duntin had been es­cort­ing in­mates to the vis­it­ing room of the Re­mand Fa­cil­i­ty that morn­ing. Around 11:30 a.m., he was in­struct­ed not to move a group of in­mates known as “the Mus­lims.” But by the time the mes­sage came, the in­mates had al­ready left their cells.

Soon af­ter, Duntin heard what he de­scribed as the sound of fire­crack­ers.

“I went to in­ves­ti­gate. In that vi­ral video that cir­cu­lat­ed af­ter­ward, you can see one of the in­mates fir­ing a gun—he was shoot­ing at me. I took cov­er near the su­per­vi­sor’s desk. At that mo­ment, I saw death. We had nev­er seen in­mates with guns be­fore.”

While Duntin sur­vived, fel­low of­fi­cer Leon Rouse was shot. Wen­dell Mitchell, In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, said Rouse may have sur­vived thanks to a thick book he used as a shield dur­ing the at­tack.

Duntin said the en­tire break­out, from the mo­ment the pris­on­ers at­tacked to their ex­it on­to the street, last­ed less than five min­utes.

A city in lock­down

With­in min­utes, down­town Port-of-Spain was locked down. Po­lice, prison of­fi­cers, and De­fence Force per­son­nel launched a mas­sive man­hunt.

Mar­tin was cor­nered at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where a shootout en­sued. He was killed. Se­cu­ri­ty guard Ani­ta Bartholomew was shot in the hand dur­ing the ex­change.

In 2019, Bartholomew sued the State for $87,900 in dam­ages, med­ical bills, and loss of earn­ings. She claimed Mar­tin pro­tect­ed her dur­ing the in­ci­dent, con­tra­dict­ing ear­ly re­ports that she was tak­en hostage. The law­suit was dis­missed by Jus­tice Eleanor Hon­ey­well-Don­ald­son in 2022.

“Hav­ing seen and heard the po­lice of­fi­cers’ tes­ti­mo­ny, I hope the claimant un­der­stands they meant her no harm,” the judge said. “I rec­om­mend that the rel­e­vant po­lice unit ini­ti­ate psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to aid her re­cov­ery.”

When Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment from Bartholomew’s em­ploy­er, Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd., the com­pa­ny re­spond­ed that the mat­ter was “long closed” and de­clined fur­ther com­ment, cit­ing em­ploy­ee pri­va­cy.

But Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son be­lieves the mat­ter is far from over, call­ing Bartholomew’s in­jury part of a broad­er is­sue: the un­der­val­u­a­tion of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers who face re­al threats on the job.

A prison or a rel­ic?

The es­cape re­newed calls for the clo­sure of the Port-of-Spain Re­mand Yard, built in 1812 and orig­i­nal­ly named the Roy­al Gaol. De­spite its age, it re­mains in ac­tive use, hous­ing near­ly 300 in­mates as of Ju­ly 2025.

“Once it re­mains gazetted as a prison, we will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate it,” said Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe in a writ­ten re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia. He in­sist­ed staffing was ad­e­quate.

How­ev­er, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don dis­agrees.

“It’s just you and God in there,” he said. “Imag­ine man­ag­ing 600 to 700 in­mates with on­ly 10 to 12 of­fi­cers. Every day, of­fi­cers bend the rules just to sur­vive.”

Gor­don, a vo­cal crit­ic of the fa­cil­i­ty’s de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in­fra­struc­ture and chron­ic un­der­staffing, con­tin­ues to lob­by for its clo­sure. While short-term re­pairs have been made, he ar­gues the colo­nial-era build­ing is be­yond mean­ing­ful up­grade.

“You can on­ly do so much with a 200-year-old prison that’s still in con­stant use.”

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan echoed that sen­ti­ment, re­call­ing an in­ci­dent where some­one threw con­tra­band over the prison wall from Fred­er­ick Street.

“Se­cu­ri­ty risks are am­pli­fied when a prison is lo­cat­ed in a dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed city cen­tre,” he said.

For­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har ac­knowl­edged the fa­cil­i­ty’s short­com­ings but said to­tal clo­sure was not prac­ti­cal giv­en over­crowd­ing in oth­er pris­ons.

“It might be more man­age­able if on­ly short-term or low-risk of­fend­ers were held there,” he said. “The struc­ture is still us­able—but with lim­its.”

Ra­mad­har al­so con­firmed that dur­ing the es­cape, one of the key CCTV cam­eras was not work­ing, leav­ing gaps in sur­veil­lance.

A 2017 Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee re­port re­vealed that al­though 52 cam­eras mon­i­tored most parts of the fa­cil­i­ty, key ar­eas—in­clud­ing the in­fir­mary, ra­tion room, and trade shop—were un­mon­i­tored at the time.

Jus­tice de­layed

As of 2025, Christo­pher Sel­by is the on­ly sur­viv­ing es­capee. The Ju­di­cia­ry con­firmed that Sel­by was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al on June 6, 2022, and the case file for­ward­ed to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). Sel­by has filed a No­tice of In­ten­tion to Plead Guilty, but the mat­ter re­mains pend­ing.

When con­tact­ed for an up­date, DPP Roger Gas­pard said he did not have im­me­di­ate de­tails but would re­spond in due course.

Sel­by faces mul­ti­ple charges, in­clud­ing:

The mur­der of Po­lice Con­sta­ble Sher­man May­nard

Es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody

As­sault­ing prison of­fi­cers Ker­ron Prime, Jean Marc Her­nan­dez, and Nicholas Singh

Shoot­ing at of­fi­cers Leon George and Tisean Fran­cis

Pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm

Rob­bery of a Nis­san Navara used in the es­cape

Theft of two prison keys val­ued at $140

Ten years lat­er, the scars of that day re­main etched in the mem­o­ries of those af­fect­ed—and the jus­tice sys­tem still has un­fin­ished busi­ness.