'Large package' in prisoner's pants found to be mixed bag of drugs

The inmate who escaped custody during last year’s infamous jail break has been busted again, this time when a bag of drugs was shoved down the front of his pants during a prison visit.

It didn’t take long for Kane Quinn to find himself back behind bars after his ex-partner Lila Rose Mary Walto broke him out of custody by using a stolen Jeep to ram a Corrective Services car multiple times in the middle of Canberra while he was being transported to hospital on 9 July 2021.

Then when he was back in the Alexander Maconochie Centre on 9 April 2022 he was visited by a “known female acquaintance” and ACT Correctional officers expressed concern over their behaviour.

At the end of the visit, Quinn and the woman embraced. She was then spotted taking a package and placing her hands down the front of his pants.

Officers intervened and the woman put a jacket around Quinn and herself to try and hide what was happening, before she was escorted to the centre’s public area.

The incident was seen by officers and captured on closed-circuit television. Quinn was handcuffed, isolated and strip searched, during which “a large package” was found down the front of his pants, court documents said. He then got into a short scuffle with the officers.

The items in the package were analysed and found to be 56 buprenorphine strips, six grams of cannabis, 0.38 grams of cocaine, 0.15 grams of heroin and 0.3 grams of methylamphetamine.

Quinn, who is also known as Kane McDowall, pleaded guilty to possessing heroin, cocaine and methylamphetamine, as well as a declared substance in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday (21 October). He also pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis as a detainee.

His barrister, Stephen Robinson, argued it was very low-level possession. He pointed out that from next year the penalties for most of the charges would change. The ACT has just become the first jurisdiction in the country to decriminalise small amounts of hard drugs.

Prosecutor Margaret Smith said it wasn’t sophisticated or “well-thought out offending”.

Quinn, 30, has already pleaded guilty to escaping custody over the prison break and remains to be sentenced, while Walto has already been handed about six-and-a-half years’ jail over the incident.

It was captured on film and footage screened to the court showed Walto smashing the Jeep into the smaller Corrective Services car before Quinn got out, ran away, turned around, dodged an officer and jumped into the Jeep when Walto screamed at him.

Walto later told police she was planning on running away with him and her children to start a new life together.

But the court has heard while she did try to marry him several times when they were both in custody, their relationship was now over.

Quinn has been in custody since 2015, serving a lengthy sentence for violent offending that ends in 2029, although he could apply for parole in 2024.

Magistrate Louise Taylor will sentence Quinn over the prison escape and drug charges on 30 November.