Prisoner who escaped Corrections’ custody during Waikato Hospital visit is recaptured – police

• –Police have been hunting escaped Spring Hill Corrections Facility prisoner Damon Anderson since December 23.
• Shocked witnesses watched and filmed dramatic escape from Waikato Hospital by shirtless man seen shimmying down exterior pipe.
• Escaped prisoner captured at Ōpārau address this morning, police say.

A prisoner who allegedly made a daring escape from the eighth floor of Waikato Hospital by shimmying down an exterior pipe two days before Christmas has been recaptured, police say.

Damon Anderson, a remand prisoner from Spring Hill Corrections Facility, escaped Corrections custody while visiting the hospital on December 23, police said.

A witness told the Herald he saw a shirtless man walking through the second floor of the hospital clad only in his underwear, and without handcuffs on, minutes before the alleged escape.

Anderson, 48, was wearing handcuffs and a GPS monitor when he escaped while at the hospital for medical reasons, Spring Hill Corrections Facility general manager Scott Walker said.

But video footage and witness reports suggested the man seen by witnesses and in video wasn’t handcuffed at the time he escaped.

Video footage sent to the Herald showed a man clinging to a pipe as he descended several storeys down the outside of the hospital, stopping briefly on a ledge before dropping to the bottom of the pipe and running away.

“It was scary,” a witness said.

“That is a huge, tall building. If he fell down, he would have died.”

Police had been looking for Spring Hill prisoner Damon Anderson since he allegedly escaped from Waikato Hospital by scaling down a pipe last month. He was recaptured this morning.

While the prisoner wasn’t considered an immediate risk to people, police urged the public not to approach him and call 111 to report any sightings.

Anderson was found early this morning at an Ōpārau address and taken into custody without incident, police said this morning.

Ōpārau is about 70km south-west of Hamilton, near Kawhia.

“He is due to appear in the Hamilton District Court tomorrow on a charge of escaping custody.”

The escaped prisoner was recaptured at Ōpārau, south-west of Hamilton and near Kawhia. Image / Google Maps

The hospital witness told the Herald a day after the incident they initially weren’t aware the escapee was a prisoner.

“There’s a mental health facility next door, so we thought he was a client from there … we were ringing the mental health facility, letting them know that a potential client of theirs was scaling the building, but they hadn’t had anyone escape from there.

“Nobody recalled that he was wearing handcuffs – otherwise we would have known he was a prisoner.”

There were “robust systems and processes” at hospitals to keep patients and staff safe, a Health New Zealand-Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said.

“We’re working closely with NZ Police and Corrections to help prevent similar incidents from occurring again.”

Immediately after the incident, Walker said public safety was the prison’s top priority and any escape was unacceptable.

There would be an immediate review of how it occurred, the Spring Hill Corrections Facility general manager said.

A Corrections spokesperson wouldn’t say how many staff were escorting the escaped prisoner, but none were injured.

The escape was the second from Waikato Hospital by a prisoner in a month.

In the first incident in November, a prisoner escaped after allegedly assaulting two Corrections officers and carjacking a vehicle. He was later arrested.

Chloe Mather, who was involved in the incident on November 22, told the Herald she’d been waiting to enter a hospital car park building when a shirtless man approached her.

She claimed he threatened her before she stepped out of her car, and he sped off with the vehicle.

Mather alleged the man then stole petrol and could be seen on a service station forecourt wearing the jersey she’d left in her car.

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