Violent prisoner re-captured after chase by gardaí in Dublin

A prisoner who escaped from prison officers as he was being escorted from a hospital appointment in December has been recaptured by gardaí in Dublin.

Lee McDonnell (23) was arrested yesterday in Ronanstown after gardaí spotted him and chased him across gardens. He was returned to the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.

McDonnell, of Lough Conn Road, Ballyfermot, west Dublin, has a total of 110 convictions. He was jailed in 2012. Subsequent convictions for crimes committed before he was jailed mean he was not due for release until 2019.

He had escaped when prison staff bringing him from a hospital appointment in the Mater hospital in Dublin on December 17th last stopped to buy him chips.

He was in a prison van with three prison officers and when the staff stopped at the chip shop on Tyrconnell Road, Inchicore, to buy food for themselves and the prisoner.

When the officers opened the back door of the vehicle to give him the food, he had slipped out of his handcuffs and burst past them, running from the scene.

Two of McDonnell’s attacks he was serving sentences for occurred within a three hour period on January 21st, 2012.

He beat a shopkeeper with the butt of a replica gun during a robbery at Sarsfield Service Station, Ballyfermot, and was jailed for six years, with three suspended, in November 2012.

In February of this year he was back before the courts and was jailed for nine years with two suspended for a violent attack on a man in his home on the same day as the petrol station attack.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told McDonnell and an accomplice “savagely” attacked a home owner to get keys for a car they used in service station robbery three hours later.

McDonnell and his accomplice broke through the front door as the homeowner tried to fight them off.

They beat the man over the head with an imitation firearm made from two metal bars until he gave them keys to his car. McDonnell had also previously attacked a man with a machete and has been transferred within the prison system several times because he had come into conflict with other prisoners.