A woman who was carjacked by a prisoner who escaped Waikato Hospital last month is shocked another prisoner from Spring Hill Corrections Facility has escaped from custody at the same hospital again.
Police are still searching for the latest escapee, 48-year-old Damon Anderson who escaped custody during a visit to Waikato Hospital on Monday afternoon.
It is the second time in a month that a prisoner has escaped from Waikato Hospital.
Earlier in the month, Chloe Mather was carjacked by a 25-year-old prisoner who managed to break free from custodial staff during an offsite specialist medical appointment.
The manhunt began on November 22, with the Eagle helicopter tracking the offender until ground staff successfully spiked the vehicle on Cambridge Road, Leamington, about 3:40pm.
The car came to a stop off Cambridge Road about five minutes later, before the man was taken into custody.
Mather told RNZ she was on her way to visit a client at Waikato Hospital, when a man opened the door of her car in the carpark of the hospital.
“He was making threats, like, ‘I’m going to smash your head in if you don’t get out of the car’,” she said.
“I sort of went into a bit of shock, and I was sort of pleading with him, like, ‘Please just leave me alone'”.
He then sat on her lap, before jumping out again and attempting to punch her in the head.
“I said, ‘I’ll give you the car, I’ll give you the car, you can have the car’. Then I grabbed my handbag off the seat into like a bear hug and just like stepped out of the car, and then off he went.”
Mather said she was shaken up after the incident.
“I’m just lucky that I actually didn’t get seriously injured by this guy, because I heard sort of what he did to the actual corrections officers that he escaped from, and it sounds really nasty.”
A couple of weeks later Mather recieved a letter: about $117.88 worth of petrol that had not been paid for at the BP in Ngāruawāhia, with a picture of the man wearing her jersey.
After hearing about another Spring Hill Corrections Facility prisoner escaping from Waikato Hospital, Mather said she was disappointed that it had happened again so soon, and by the response from Corrections to the media.
“I feel like they’re lying, because if these men were wearing handcuffs, well then how come they both had their hands free to do what they wanted to do? That’s what concerns me.”
She said the prisoner who had carjacked her had handcuffs around her wrist but they were not together.
Mather was also disappointed that Corrections had not reached out to her after the incident. She said Corrections should have at least asked if she was OK, but also should have given her an explanation.
Spring Hill Corrections Facility general manager Scott Walker said he acknowledged that incidents like this can be upsetting for survivors and victims of crime and he was incredibly sorry for any distress caused.
“Reviews are underway into the incident that occurred yesterday, and the incident last month. We will be looking at what changes can be made to operational processes in light of the findings when they have been completed.
“Any escape is unacceptable and we are absolutely committed to learning from the reviews and doing everything we can to prevent a similar event from ever occurring again.”
By Pretoria Gordan and Lucy Xia of rnz.co.nz
