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IRA Prisoner Escapes Ulster Jail in Drag

By Deric Henderson, PA News.
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker


An angry mother wept tonight after her son's IRA killer escaped from Ulster's top security Maze Prison dressed as a woman.

Liam Averill, 32, fled during a Christmas party for republicans, their wives and families.

A tearful Mrs Frances Smith said: "He should never be allowed to see daylight again."

Averill, from Maghera, south Derry, was one of a number of IRA gunmen who shot dead her 40-year-old son Alan, a former UDR soldier, and another Protestant John McCloy in the village of Garvagh in April l994. They were hit by up to 30 bullets as they sat talking in parked cars in the village's Main Street.

Averill was arrested at a police checkpoint soon afterwards when gloves, balaclavas and spent cartridges were found in his car.

On Wednesday he walked away in disguise for 600 yards without being checked before disappearing through the Maze exit gates and into a visitors' car park.

A furious Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam ordered an immediate investigation. "This was an appalling lapse in security," she said.

Police chiefs fear Averill was over the border and into the Irish Republic within hours of his freedom dash, but as he lay low tonight grieving mother Mrs Smith said there should be no hiding place for him in the north or south.

This latest escape from the Maze just hours before Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street meeting with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams left prison authorities deeply embarrassed.

The regime had apparently been tightened up after a failed mass breakout by IRA men earlier this year when a tunnel was found, but serious questions over another security breakdown remained unanswered tonight.

Averill is thought to have been missing for at least two hours before staff even realised he had disappeared from H-Block 8 and the escape was only confirmed after an IRA commander asked shocked officers to carry out a head count.

Mrs Smith added: "I don't know this man. I've never met him. I don't want to see him, but after what he did to my son he should never be free again."

Women's clothes had been smuggled into the jail for Averill to use. As wives and children mingled with republican prisoners at the Christmas party he managed to slip away and dress.

Before his hugely symbolic meeting at No 10 the Sinn Fein president, who once tried to escape from the Maze when he was held there over 25 years ago, rubbed salt into the Government's wounds.

He said: "While there are prisoners, there will be prisoners who try to escape. I tried it myself. Liam Averill succeeded where I didn't. Good luck to him."

As the authorities confirmed arrangements for l0 days of Christmas parole for 160 loyalist and republican convicts, senior prison staff who claimed paramilitaries on all sides effectively control the day-to-day running of the jail called for a full independent judicial inquiry.

Ulster Unionists were outraged by the escape. MP Ken Maginnis said: "This was meticulously planned. It must have involved dozens of people. It's a further humiliation for the Government."

Ms Mowlam later announced the inquiry into the escape would be headed by Martin Narey, head of security and policy at the Prison Service in London.

He will look at procedures used to control the movement of prisoners outside the H blocks and the control of visitors to the prison.

He will report back to the Secretary of State.



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