Maze Prison escape
The Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape) took place on 25 September 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh) was a maximum security prison considered to be one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. It held prisoners suspected of taking part in armed paramilitary campaigns during the Troubles, with separate wings for loyalists and for republicans. In the biggest prison escape in UK history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners escaped from H-Block 7 (H7) of the prison. One prison officer died of a heart attack during the escape and twenty others were injured, including two who were shot with guns that had been smuggled into the prison.
The escape was a propaganda coup for the IRA, and a British government minister faced calls to resign. The official inquiry into the escape placed most of the blame onto prison staff, who in turn blamed the escape on political interference in the running of the prison.
Previous IRA escapes
IRA
Nineteen IRA members escaped from
1983 escape
HM Prison Maze was considered one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. In addition to 15-foot (4.6 m) fences, each H-Block was encompassed by an 18-foot (5.5 m) concrete wall topped with
At 3:25 pm, a lorry delivering food supplies arrived at the entrance to H7, whereupon
At nearly 4:00 pm the lorry drove towards the main gate of the prison, where the prisoners intended to take over the gatehouse. Ten prisoners dressed in guards' uniforms and armed with guns and chisels dismounted from the lorry and entered the gatehouse, where they took the officers hostage.[13] At 4:05 pm the officers began to resist, and an officer pressed an alarm button. When other staff responded via an intercom, a senior officer said while being held at gunpoint that the alarm had been triggered accidentally. By this time the prisoners were struggling to maintain control in the gatehouse due to the number of hostages.[13] Officers arriving for work were entering the gatehouse from outside the prison, and each was ordered at gunpoint to join the other hostages. Officer James Ferris ran from the gatehouse towards the pedestrian gate attempting to raise the alarm, pursued by Dermot Finucane. Ferris had already been stabbed three times in the chest, and before he could raise the alarm he collapsed.[13]
Finucane continued to the pedestrian gate where he stabbed the officer controlling the gate, and two officers who had just entered the prison. This incident was seen by a soldier on duty in a
Four prisoners attacked one of the officers and hijacked his car, which they drove towards the external gate. They crashed into another car near the gate and abandoned the car. Two escaped through the gate, one was captured exiting the car, and another was captured after being chased by a soldier.[13] At the main gate, a prison officer was shot in the leg while chasing the only two prisoners who had not yet reached the outer fence. The prisoner who fired the shot was captured after being shot and wounded by a soldier in a watch tower, and the other prisoner was captured after falling. The other prisoners escaped over the fence, and by 4:18 pm the main gate was closed and the prison secured, after 35 prisoners had breached the prison perimeter.[13] The escape was the biggest in British history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II.[12][14]
Outside the prison the IRA had planned a logistical support operation involving 100 armed members,[15] but due to a miscalculation of five minutes, the prisoners found no transport waiting for them and were forced to flee across fields or hijack vehicles.[9][16] The British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) immediately activated a contingency plan and by 4:25 pm a cordon of vehicle checkpoints was in place around the prison, and others were later in place in strategic positions across Northern Ireland, resulting in the recapture of one prisoner at 11:00 pm. Twenty prison officers were injured during the escape, thirteen were kicked and beaten, four stabbed, and two shot. One prison officer, James Ferris, who had been stabbed, died after suffering a heart attack during the escape.[9][13]
Reaction
The escape was a propaganda coup and morale boost for the IRA, with Irish republicans dubbing it the "Great Escape".
The Hennessy Report was published on 26 January 1984 placing most of the blame for the escape on prison staff, and made a series of recommendations to improve security at the prison.[13][18] The report also placed blame with the designers of the prison, the Northern Ireland Office and successive prison governors who had failed to improve security.[13] James Prior announced that the prison's governor had resigned, and that there would be no ministerial resignations as a result of the report's findings.[18][19] Four days after the Hennessy Report was published, Nicholas Scott dismissed allegations from the Prison Governors Association and the Prison Officers Association that the escape was due to political interference in the running of the prison.[18]
On 25 October 1984, nineteen prisoners appeared in court on charges relating to the death of prison officer James Ferris, sixteen charged with his murder.
Escapees
Fifteen escapees were captured on the day, including four who were discovered by the RUC hiding underwater in the
Escapee
In November 1987 Paul Kane and one of the masterminds of the escape, Dermot Finucane[16]—brother of assassinated solicitor Pat Finucane—were arrested in Granard, County Longford on extradition warrants issued by the British authorities.[27] Robert Russell was extradited back to Northern Ireland in August 1988 after being captured in Dublin in 1984,[28][29] as was Paul Kane in April 1989.[30] In March 1990 the Supreme Court of Ireland in Dublin blocked the extradition of James Pius Clarke and Dermot Finucane on the grounds they "would be probable targets for ill-treatment by prison staff" if they were returned to prison in Northern Ireland.[31][32]
Kevin Barry Artt, Pól Brennan, James J. Smyth and Terrence Kirby, collectively known as the "H-Block 4", were arrested in the United States between 1992 and 1994 and fought lengthy legal battles against extradition.
As of 2008, two escapees, Gerard Fryers and Séamus Campbell, had not been traced since the escape.[43]
Mistreatment
The captured prisoners were mistreated by prison officers upon return. During the extradition hearing of fugitive and Maze Prison escapee James J. Smyth at the U.S. district court in San Francisco, Maze prison governor John Baxter admitted that guards brutalised the returning inmates following the 1983 breakout and later lied in court by denying the prisoners had suffered dog bites. However, he said the officers involved had never been disciplined and there were no plans to do so.[44] U.S. district judge Barbara A. Caulfield wrote under the "Maze prison" section of her finding that:[45]
6. The republican prisoners who escaped but were captured and returned were forced to run a gauntlet of guard dogs which were allowed to bite them. The guards ordered attack dogs upon the republican prisoners as they were moved to other cell blocks. The dogs bit several prisoners. The prisoners were denied medical care for several days. Many of the escapees were rounded up and returned to the Maze immediately after the escape. Upon their return to the Maze, prison officers kicked and punched the returned escapees and repeatedly called them "Fenian bastards." Numerous prison officers took part in the mistreatment of the returned escapees.
7. There was no evidence that prisoners in the loyalist wing were similarly treated. That is, of the loyalist and republican prisoners who did not escape, only the republicans were moved, beaten, kicked, bitten by dogs, and subjected to religious and political insults.
8. Several prisoners brought actions for damages for their treatment following the escape. The court in Northern Ireland found that there was a widespread conspiracy to conceal the fact of the assault of the prisoners.
9. No disciplinary action was ever taken against the prison officers for their abuse of the prisoners in connection with the escape or for perjuring themselves. The current prison governor testified that there are no plans to discipline the prison officers involved and the "case is closed" as far as he is concerned. None of the testifying prison officials knew whether any of the prison officers who participated in the abuse of the returned escapees or who perjured themselves are still employed at the Maze prison. The Maze Prison governor, John Baxter, acknowledged that many of the guards who are at the Maze now have been there since the 1983 escape.
...
12. Ex-prisoners from the Maze are subject to increased scrutiny by the security forces. Several witnesses on behalf of James Smyth testified that ex-prisoners are frequently subject to harassment by the security forces.
13. Sean Mackin was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of a prison officer's daughter. Mackin testified that while he was in the Crumlin Road prison before trial, he was treated differently from other prisoners in that every time an officer was killed, he would either be beaten in his cell or put in solitary confinement.
...
15. Paul Kane was a 1983 Maze escapee who was extradited from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland in 1989. During the course of his extradition proceedings, he applied to the Minister of Justice in Ireland not to send him back because he feared being assaulted by the prison staff and members of the security forces. The Minister of Justice denied the application and guaranteed that Kane would not be abused upon his return. As soon as Kane was handed over to the security forces at the Northern Ireland border, verbal abuse, including anti-Catholic remarks, began. Once put in a holding cell in Belfast, handcuffs were placed very tightly on his wrists and despite numerous requests, the handcuffs were not removed or loosened. Kane also was roughed up by the security forces within hours of being returned to Northern Ireland.
Subsequent escape attempts
On 10 August 1984
In March 1997 a 40-foot (12 m) tunnel was discovered in H7 at the Maze Prison. The tunnel was fitted with electric lights, and was 80 feet (24 m) from the outside wall, having already breached the block's perimeter wall.[52] On 10 December 1997 IRA prisoner Liam Averill, serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of two Protestants, escaped from the Maze dressed as a woman.[52] Averill mingled with a group of prisoners' families attending a Christmas party, and escaped on the coach taking the families out of the prison.[52][53] He was not apprehended and was granted an amnesty in 2001.[54]
Dramatisation
The prison break was dramatised in the 2017 film Maze, written and directed by Stephen Burke, and starring Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Barry Ward.[55]
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