Six escapes in three months: no idea how prisoner got out

Police say they have no idea how a prisoner got past a two-metre-high, razor wire-lined perimeter fence to become the sixth man in three months to escape from a NSW jail.

Prison officers discovered Robert John Dwight was missing from his minimum security cell at Silverwater jail, in Sydney's west, during a head count about 9pm yesterday.

Police are checking out his former addresses.

His escape comes three weeks after another prisoner, Robert John Everingham, fled from a hospital where he was receiving dialysis treatment. Two guards were posted outside his door when he escaped.

Everingham is still on the run.

Police said it was not known how or when Dwight, 33, escaped. A search has so far failed to find him.

The prison conducted head counts three times a day, in the morning, about lunchtime and at night, a Corrective Services spokeswoman said.

Most jail cells, except designated observation cells, do not have security cameras, she said.

Dwight would most likely have had to scale the prison's two-metre-high perimeter fence, which is lined with razor wire.

He had been in custody since January 6 this year for break and enter offences. His earliest release date was January 2011, the spokeswoman said.

He was last seen dressed in prison greens.

Police said people should not approach Dwight if they see him and should instead phone triple-0.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts should phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Everingham, 41, remains free after escaping from the War Memorial Hospital in Waverley on the morning of July 1.

Everingham was an inmate at Long Bay Correctional Centre but was at the hospital receiving dialysis treatment, with two guards posted outside his hospital door.

He was on remand for breach of AVO and assault and had previously escaped Silverwater jail while serving a sentence in 1994.

In May, four men - Jay Williams, 19, John Joseph Harris, 18, Ricky Kincheila, 19, and Isaac Haines, 19 - escaped from Parramatta Correctional Centre. They have since been recaptured.

A week earlier, Emil Mattar, 64, an inmate at Long Bay Correctional Centre for drug offences, escaped for just over four hours.

One of the most celebrated escapes was in January 2006, when inmate Robert Cole escaped Long Bay jail by losing so much weight through dieting that he was able to slip through a gap he made between a brick wall and a metal grate outside his hospital cell.

Cole lost 14 kilograms and so he could squeeze between the brickwork - which he had chipped away at - and bars outside his cell window.

He was recaptured a few days later.

LEAVING THOSE BLUES BEHIND

January 17, 2005: Robert Cole, 36, slips out of his hospital cell after losing 14 kilograms.

November 29, 2004: Ashley Sloan and Paul Wayne Presdee scale two walls at Parramatta jail.

March 29, 1999: Kevin John Pearce forces open the door of a prison van in inner Sydney.

March 25, 1999: John Reginald Killick escapes from Silverwater in a helicopter.

November 4, 1997: Brendon Abbott cuts through bars in Brisbane with angel wire.

July 6, 1995: George Savvas in disguise passes checkpoints at Goulburn.

November 4, 1977: Russell Cox climbs two 4.5-metre barbed-wire fences at Long Bay jail to freedom.