DIY prison break: Sex offender digs his way out of jail using a spoon, broom handle and a chair leg
Break out: Schmidt dug his way out
rex
By | 23 Jul 2013 00:00
A sex attacker is on the run in Germany after tunnelling out of his cell using a broom handle, chair leg… and a spoon.
Thomas Schmidt, 25, dug away the prison’s crumbling masonry then knotted together bedsheets to clamber down three floors.
The makeshift rope, tied to the steel mesh of his cell window, turned out to be 10ft short of a parapet he was aiming to reach.
So he dropped into the prison courtyard andclimbed another wall to freedom.
Police later followed a trail of blood where he had gashed himself on razor wire. It led to a nearby underground station, where the notorious fugitive is believed to have boarded a train.
Amazingly, despite a nationwide manhunt, detectives were unable to release a picture of Schmidt – because it would infringe his human rights.
Under bizarre personal data protection rules in Germany, images of him can be only be distributed after a full-scale police search has failed.
Justice spokesman Tim Angerer said: “We must abide by the federal law.”
Schmidt, who has a history of sexual offences, was being held in custody at Hamburg’s remand prison accused of breaking into a pensioner’s flat in June. Prosecutors claim he violently assaulted the elderly woman and broke her wrist.
Schmidt is said to have used the noise of a firework display at nearby Hamburg Cathedral to drown out the noise of his tunnelling.
A spokesman for the prison said: “The fireworks display is always accompanied by loud cheers and whistles inside the jail. Apparently this also helped him in his efforts to get away undetected.”
Schmidt also took advantage of a major triathlon event in the city over the weekend, which meant that numerous officers who could have joined the hunt for him were tied up on crowd duty.
It was not clear last night when authorities would decide that the time had come to seek public assistance by releasing Schmidt’s picture.
Thomas Schmidt, 25, dug away the prison’s crumbling masonry then knotted together bedsheets to clamber down three floors.
The makeshift rope, tied to the steel mesh of his cell window, turned out to be 10ft short of a parapet he was aiming to reach.
So he dropped into the prison courtyard andclimbed another wall to freedom.
Police later followed a trail of blood where he had gashed himself on razor wire. It led to a nearby underground station, where the notorious fugitive is believed to have boarded a train.
Amazingly, despite a nationwide manhunt, detectives were unable to release a picture of Schmidt – because it would infringe his human rights.
Under bizarre personal data protection rules in Germany, images of him can be only be distributed after a full-scale police search has failed.
Justice spokesman Tim Angerer said: “We must abide by the federal law.”
Schmidt, who has a history of sexual offences, was being held in custody at Hamburg’s remand prison accused of breaking into a pensioner’s flat in June. Prosecutors claim he violently assaulted the elderly woman and broke her wrist.
Schmidt is said to have used the noise of a firework display at nearby Hamburg Cathedral to drown out the noise of his tunnelling.
A spokesman for the prison said: “The fireworks display is always accompanied by loud cheers and whistles inside the jail. Apparently this also helped him in his efforts to get away undetected.”
Schmidt also took advantage of a major triathlon event in the city over the weekend, which meant that numerous officers who could have joined the hunt for him were tied up on crowd duty.
It was not clear last night when authorities would decide that the time had come to seek public assistance by releasing Schmidt’s picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment