GARDAI searched a number of houses in Dublin yesterday as the hunt continued for Thomas Clarke, who escaped from a Garda van on Thursday. The houses were considered likely hiding-places, but gardai found no sign of the convicted armed robber, who was freed when accomplices rammed the van on the Naas Road.
Three masked and armed men drove a stolen car into the van, forcing it off the road. They broke its windows and forced prison officers to open Clarke's handcuffs. ,Clarke was being escorted by four prison officers and a garda, but none was armed. The car was found later with a small amount of blood on the seats, suggesting that Clarke or one of his accomplices had been slightly wounded during the escape.
Yesterday the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, said that she had requested a full report from the Garda. She added that determining the level of escort was a matter for the Garda and the governor of Portlaoise Prison, from which Clarke was travelling to a court hearing in Dublin. There were 16,000 journeys to and from prisons every year, but very few of them would have armed escorts".
Yesterday representatives of the Prison Officers' Association met Department of Justice officials to seek assurances that escort procedures would be reviewed. Mr Tom Hoare, of the POA, said that the level of security provided was "a Garda decision". Clarke had escaped on other occasions, and the journey to court was his fourth in recent "weeks.
The Minister said she did not know whether Clarke might have organised his own escape.
"There's nothing unusual about a prisoner knowing when he's going to court", she said. "Prisoners do, have access to telephones in prisons. That's the kind of system we have here."
She pointed to new legislation which would limit the opportunity for such escapes in the future. Under a Bill currently being drafted, prisoners can be brought to a court close to their prison for remand hearings, while the remand time will increase from eight to 15 days, halving the number of journeys needed.
The Progressive Democrats's spokeswoman on justice, Ms Liz O'Donnell TD, said Clarke's escape was "another depressing trouncing of the State's justice system, for which there will be no accountability, even of the old fashioned political variety".