A Victorian fugitive has been arrested without incident in a busy shopping centre after more than a week on the run.
Andrew Darling escaped from Corrections Victoria’s Corella Place transition facility at Ararat in the state’s southwest on July 6 after breaking off his satellite tracking device.
On Monday morning, a shop assistant spotted the 42 year old near a toilet block at the rear of Ballarat’s Bridge Mall, about 100km east of Ararat, and phoned police.
Sergeant Paul Kinna of Ballarat police said Darling did not resist officers.
“At 9.20am (AEST) we sent our units and he was arrested in the toilet block after we got a call from a member of the public,” he told AAP.
“He was compliant. He was quiet and a bit hungry.”
Corrections Minister Ed O’Donoghue said Darling will be charged with breaching his supervision order, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
He said the arrest will likely spark a review of procedures at Corella Place, a 40 bed Corrections Victoria supervised transition facility for former prisoners.
“All such incidents are reviewed to make sure procedures worked as intended and to see whether changes should be made,” he said.
“In this instance, staff were at the offender’s unit within one minute of his GPS bracelet sending out an alarm, and police had been called within three minutes.”
AAP
