Jarrod Gilbert: How I was involved in a prison break in Port Moresby

Papua New Guinea is a naturally beautiful country with more than 800 tribes and as many different dialects. Photo / Mike Scott

OPINION

It’s still the holidays for most, so I figured I’d write a yarn today. This yarn occurred in 2013 in the sweltering heat of Port Moresby, where I was filming a documentary.

I wasn’t planning to be part of a prison break, that’s just the way things turn out sometimes.

Papua New Guinea is a naturally beautiful country with more than 800 tribes and as many different dialects. It has an unstable political system awash with corruption, and lawlessness has become such a problem that on the day I arrived the Prime Minister declared “war” on crime.

I’d been in the country a couple of weeks before the documentary crew arrived shoring up some ideas. A taxi driver initially wouldn’t let me out of the car at what’s called the Nine Mile settlement, because it was entirely unheard of for a white guy to be there. I had met a lot of people and set a lot of things up, but with the cameras now rolling, my idea of starting with two days of filming in a police squad was fast looking like a waste of time.

At the end of the second night, we had a couple of domestic incidents and little else (violence against women is endemic in the cities and near-universal in the highlands). Back at the Boroko police station where the jail cells are we had a crew meeting. Have we got anything to use? Not really. One scuffle might make the final cut. We need a release form from the arrested bloke so we can legally show his face on television. How will we get that?

“I’ll get the release form,” I said.

Papua New Guinea is a naturally beautiful country with more than 800 tribes and as many different dialects. Photo / Mike Scott

The next thing I know a cop was opening the door to the cells. It was dimly lit and, as my eyes adjusted, I immediately wondered what the hell I was doing. The main cell was an open area with smaller cells coming off it. The men wandered around freely, but it was terribly overcrowded. And it smelled. Being surrounded by violent men is one thing, but the unknown is something else. In the darkness, my white skin contrasted with theirs as I glowed like an underpowered incandescent light. I hid the concern from my face, but the stifling heat meant sweat was dripping off it.

I was put in a small cell with the guy I needed to see and the cop left us. Where the hell is he going, I thought. I went about my business explaining to the prisoner, in Pidgin English, that I wanted to put him on the television in England. The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck me, but to my surprise, he happily nodded his head thinking that when he signed the form he would be freed from jail. Whoops.

“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t do that.”

Then he got angry. A silent, menacing anger.

He began clenching his fist and repeatedly pointing at me. In a conversation hitherto inhibited by problems of verbal communication, here was a perfectly recognisable statement that he wished to pound my body with his knuckles. Bother, I thought. It flashed through my mind that being ripped apart in a prison cell in Port Moresby might be the way my journey ends. Bother, I thought again.

With confidence that belied genuine fear, I nonchalantly shook my head and extended my hand to shake his. If he were going to hit me it would be now. He didn’t. I breathed out and whipped out of the cell to see the cop still in the crowded main area. I signalled I was keen to go, still desperately faking a relaxed manner as the gaze of every prisoner followed me.

As the cop unlocked the door to the outside courtyard the prisoner who had forever ruined his chances of being on telly silently crept between the heavy exit grille and me. The cop didn’t see the stealth and he continued to open the door. Bang! The guy shot through it into the daylight. Bugger me, I thought.

The cop lunged forward and caught my fleeing friend by the shorts (which was all he was wearing) and they lurched down entangling his legs, which were pumping furiously in an effort to get away. I grabbed one of his arms and the three of us tussled on the ground. Looking up I saw the entire jail pouring through the open door. At which point I did the only thing a sensible man would do. I ran. With a small head start it now appeared as though I were leading the prison break. This, I thought to myself, was a quite peculiar turn of events.

As I darted into the main station, I suggested to the cops that some assistance was required and to the cameraman that I may have inadvertently made some terrific television and pointed in the direction of the melee.

We went back to see the single cop heralding the prisoners back into the jail. Apparently, those who had flooded from the cells after the initial break had been from the cop’s tribe and they had rounded up anybody they thought was taking the piss. They also beat the living daylights out of the fellow who initially darted out.

My heart was beating like an exploding canon, I leaned against a wall, and pondered the events of the last 20 minutes just as the documentary host, Ross Kemp, came around from the carpark.

“Can you believe this heat, Jarrod?”

“No, mate, it’s pretty damn hot.”

• Dr Jarrod Gilbert is the director of Independent Research Solutions and a sociologist at the University of Canterbury.