‘Facebook escape artist’ walked out of unlocked cell door in Ennis courthouse

‘Facebook escape artist’ Jason Freyne, who was in custody last July, opened a malfunctioning, unlocked cell door and walked out the back door of a courthouse.

At Ennis District Court yesterday, Judge Patrick Durcan described the incident at Ennis courthouse on July 15 as “opportunity knocks” and asked was Freyne “like the man in the Harry Potter film?”

In court yesterday, Freyne, aged 24, pleaded guilty to the offence arising out of his escape from custody.

The Limerick man saw the case struck out by Judge Durcan.

After hearing evidence that the cell door wasn’t locked, Judge Durcan said: “Isn’t the natural instinct just to walk away?”

Judge Durcan compared Freyne’s actions to that of a fish caught on a hook: “If you have a fish badly on the hook, it will try to get back into the water.”

Freyne, of Ash Avenue, Carew Park, remained at large for six days. During that time, he posted pictures on his Facebook page dressed in a blue Adidas tracksuit giving the thumbs-up.

A day after he broke free, Freyne posted online to his friends asking, “Who else is out today haha?”

Gardaí and the Prison Service remain baffled as to how Freyne escaped.

Asked how Freyne escaped, Detective Garda Frank Browne said: “We’re not sure, there was an issue with the door and he made good his escape.”

Judge Durcan replied: “You are telling me the door opened? It wasn’t locked?”

Det Garda Browne said: “We are still not 100% how he escaped.”

He added that there no evidence the door was forced. Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court: “The door was thought to be locked and it wasn’t.”

Judge Durcan said: “Mr Freyne was down there in the cell. He had nothing to do. He touched the door and it opened, isn’t that what happened?”

Insp Kennedy said: “There was a malfunction with the door and I think the doors have been replaced since this incident.”

Det Garda Browne said that after remaining at large for five days, Freyne presented himself at Limerick prison.

Judge Durcan described it as a bizarre case “and what was more bizarre is that he turned up at Limerick prison five days later and just knocked on the door”.

The judge asked: “Was the weather getting bad or what?”

In reply, Det Garda Browne said: “It was the summer and as you know we didn’t have a great summer.”

Although the case was struck out, Freyne didn’t walk free from court yesterday.

He is serving a sentence until late spring after Judge Durcan in September imposed an additional three-month jail term to what he was serving already for possessing a knife in a public place.