Sexual predator Mark Taylor had the chance to escape from Christchurch Men's Prison because he signed an agreement giving him minimum security privileges, a former inmate claims.
Taylor was given preventive detention, the stiffest possible sentence, for a string of sexual attacks against women, but escaped on November 5, apparently by
hiding in a delivery van after working in the prison kitchen.
Department of Corrections chief executive Mark Byers has stated that Taylor's escape was probably due to the failures of prison officers, and disciplinary action is likely.
However, a former inmate who spent 14 months in the jail, told the Press that Taylor, a high-medium security prisoner, should not have been in the minimum-security kitchen.
Taylor was there only because he had signed a "Harmony Wing" agreement. It meant that a prisoner had to share a cell with the worst criminals and agree to no fights or retaliation, the former inmate said. In return, he got privileges such as kitchen work.
"This is sort of condoning their sick crimes," the man told the newspaper.
"In the Harmony Wing, you know you are going to be looked after and you'll get showers in your cell, and more food when you are working in the kitchen. Meanwhile, a burglar or a drink-driver who doesn't want to live with those sorts of people, has to sit in the main jail and do it hard.
"Who wants to live with a child molester?"
The former prisoner said he spent a short time in the Harmony Wing, but wanted out as soon as he realised what he had got into.
"It's there to make the prison officers' life easier. It makes the place run smoothly."
The Department of Corrections refused to comment on the former inmate's comments, but a spokesman said all issues around Taylor's escape would be thoroughly investigated.
The prison workers' union, the Corrections Association, has already raised concerns about the staff-to-prisoner ratio in the kitchen.
Taylor was recaptured within a day.
He told the Christchurch District Court he feared for his life after beatings in which he lost four teeth and needed 30 stitches.
- NZPA
