TUNNEL TO FREEDOM

A PRISONER who painstakingly tunnelled a hole to escape his cell each night and wander the streets of Gibraltar was only given away after he was spotted by someone from the Rock’s parole board.

The incredible story - straight from The Shawshank Redemption, a film released the year before - only recently came to light in the memoirs of Superintendent John Field, whose career in the Royal Gibraltar Police spans 30 years.

It was one hot night in the summer of 1996, after officers had arrived at the old Moorish Castle Prison, that they found a prisoner had painstakingly dug an escape hole through his cell wall.

Rather cunningly, the hole was hid-

By Walter Finch

den by a poster, allowing the man to escape every evening when he would roam Gibraltar freely, cavorting with locals and pinching what wasn’t his before returning to his cell early the next morning.

A young and wide-eyed Superintendent Field had been dispatched to investigate the mysterious case of the night-time wanderer.

The daring impersonator of Andy Dufresne - Stephen King’s character in Shawshank who spent 20 years tunnelling out of his own cell - was eventually rumbled after a number of jaunts in the clean air of temporary freedom.

As Field recalls in his book, Subbuteo, Bonsai and Catching the Bad Guys: “I remember getting a call from the acting Superintendent of the Prison, Daniel Agius. “I went to the prison and he showed me this massive hole in the wall,” he explained in an interview to

UNBELIEVABLE: A prisoner scurried out of his hole each night with John Hill inspecting and (below) across three decades promote the book.

“The prisoner had been removing clay and cement and was going out at night, before returning and distributing alcohol and all the stuff he was stealing.

“Someone on his parole board even thought he saw him out one evening, which of course he denied.

“He covered the hole with a map of the world like in The Shawshank Redemption. It went undetected for a good time until eventually we realised what was happening and he was interviewed, charged and convicted.”

This is just one of Field’s more interesting cases in a career that has spanned over three decades – making him the second longest serving officer in the RGP after the Commissioner, Richard Ullger. A former plumber, he joined the RGP in March 1992 at the age of 21 and is soon about to retire.

“I was the youngest officer in the force when I joined. And now I’m about to leave, I’ll be one of the oldest!” he joked.

NEWS IN BRIEF THE family of a missing expat mother feared murdered in Spain have released balloons to remember her on her 40th birthday.

Quiet respect

GIBRALTAR Chief Minister Fabian Picardo will hold a one-minute’s silence to observe Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27.

At work

ALL industrial action by Gibraltar’s Information Technology and Logistics Department has now ended after the government tackled their main issues.

Deadline

MAYOR of Gibraltar

Christian Santos has reminded the public to send in their nominations for the Mayor’s Awards before the deadline of February 3.

Art call

THE Ministry of Culture is calling out to artists who would be interested in a new cultural hub offering cheap studio spaces with facilities for print-making and ceramics.

Birthday tears

There are still no answers to what happened to Lisa Brown (inset), who went missing in November, 2015.

The prime suspect meanwhile, has escaped from jail and is still at large.

Dean Woods, aka Simon Corner, was on day release from Sudbury prison, when he absconded and did not return.

A JURY in Gibraltar has found four Spanish men caught with £11 million of hashish in local waters NOT guilty of importing the illegal drug. The four had, however, earlier pleaded guilty to being in possession of the two tons of cannabis resin, for which they could go to prison for up to five years.

Chief Justice Anthony Dudley also found them not guilty of importing the illegal 12-metre RHIB they were travelling on.

Campo residents Francisco Javier Rocca Caballo, Francisco Andres Fernandez Sanchez, Juan Manuel Rivera Montero and Juan Carlos Guitterez Exposito have already spent 17 months behind bars.

The 40-year-old yacht dealer was just two years into a 12-year stretch for his involvement in an €9 million cocaine ring. Woods has long been suspected of being behind the disappearance of his ex-partner Lisa, who lived near Sotogrande. He was quizzed by cops after Lisa, from Scotland, failed to collect her eight-yearold son from school in Guadiaro.

“This isn’t the day we wanted for her,” her sister Helen told the Olive Press having released the balloons near Glasgow on Friday. “We will never be able to properly honour Lisa while the prime suspect remains on the run. Lisa isn't at peace - she’s dumped somewhere so how can she possibly be at peace.”