ONE of 17 men who escaped from the Spanish Town lock-up in St Catherine early yesterday morning was captured by the police last night.

Police said they took Roderick Satchell, 25, from a taxi he had boarded at the corner of Wellington and Young streets in Spanish Town shortly before nine o’clock, just over 18 hours after the jail break that severely embarrassed the police and pushed Commissioner Francis Forbes to order a probe.

The escapees, who were among 131 men being held in 10 cells originally built to accommodate 46 prisoners, apparently cut their way out of their cells and left the holding area through a grille opening 15 inches wide by 8 inches high.

Police gave their names as:

* Keneal Burke, 19, of 86 Brunswick Avenue, Spanish Town;

* Robert Foster, 23, of Inswood Estate, Spanish Town;

* Christopher Burke, 24, of Mall Road, Gordon Pen, Spanish Town;

* Damion Burgess, 22, of Angel Heights, Spanish Town;

* Rohan Hall, 19, of 212 Brunswick Avenue, Spanish Town;

* Tyrone McLeary, 20, of Lot 198, Zimbabwe, Arnett Gardens in Kingston 13;

* Junior Lewis, 23, of Gordon Pen, Spanish Town;

* Frederick Giscombe, 29, of Tredegar Park, Spanish Town; and

* Roderick Satchell, 25, all charged with illegal possession of firearm and ammunition and shooting with intent.

* Curtis Brown, 20, of Mile Gully, Manchester;

* Conroy Robinson, 18, of 5 Cassava Piece Road, Kingston; and

* Paul Kennedy, alias “Tiger”, 25, of 43 Wild Street, Kingston 4, all charged with murder.

* Ricardo Lawrence, 17, of Wynters Pen, Spanish Town, charged with carnal abuse;

* Carlington Scarlett, 18, of 20 Kidd Lane, Kingston 13, awaiting trial for robbery with aggravation;

* Ricky McLean, 21, of Angels Town, St Catherine, charged with burglary;

* Garnett Smith, 24, of 5 Kew Road, Kingston; and

* Andrew Thomas, 21, of 1 Kew Road, Kingston who were each serving a 10-year sentence for illegal possession of firearm.

Superintendent Clifford Blake, who is in charge of the police’s St Catherine North Division, said the men escaped at about 2:30 yesterday morning after cutting the grille to the side of their cells, after which they left the holding area via the roof and jumped over a wall onto Burke Road.

But a police source told the Observer that authorities noticed that the men were missing at about 2:45 am when prisoners from Kingston arrived at Spanish Town for an identification parade scheduled for yesterday.

Suspects who are scheduled to go on identification parades are normally transported in the early morning, under cover of darkness, in order to prevent them from being seen by the public.

At the time of the jail break, four policemen — two sergeants, a special constable and a district constable who doubled as perimeter patroller — were on duty at the station. But one policeman, who was not among the four working at the time of the escape, said that it was unreasonable to expect four cops to properly guard the 131 prisoners.

He said all the locks on the cell doors were defective, so the prisoners were able to leave the cells and crowd the passageway.

“There is no way we can secure them. The situation bad, me a tell you man. This was an event waiting to happen,” said the cop, who did not want to be named.

He said that the cells have been in poor condition for over two years and requests for repairs have been sent to the police high command “but nothing permanent or substantial had been done to improve the situation”.

The cop, who also complained that the closed-circuit television and the fans in the lock-up were defective, said: “I mean, they never work, so the place hot, stink, and you can’t monitor the prisoners.”

He rejected an early call for the immediate suspension of the police guards on duty at the time of the escape and said: “They (police top brass) would have to suspend themselves first before taking any steps to remove the policemen from duty because is long time now the problem exists. We have been warning them long time of something like this.”

But Police Commissioner Forbes has ordered the police’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the circumstances leading to the escape, instructing the probe team to determine:

* if enough guards were on duty at the time;

* whether they were negligent; and

* whether laid-down regulations for guarding prisoners were followed.

The three-man investigative team will also be assisted by forensic experts to find out how long before the escape the bars were cut, whether periodic checks were made on the prisoners and if the bars on the cells were tapped to ensure that they were not being tampered with.

Yesterday, National Security Minister Peter Phillips encouraged the police to work at recapturing the escapees as quickly as possible.

He said events such as this “retard the struggle to control crime and undermine the public’s confidence in the law enforcement system”.

Phillips also said that the escape and highlighted the need for a fully operational remand centre and announced that he had instructed the Correctional Department to advance the schedule for full utilisation of the Horizon Remand Centre in Kingston.