A Canberra man sprung from custody last year when his girlfriend rammed a corrections car has expressed relief after he was given a 16-month jail sentence by the ACT Magistrates Court.
Kane Quinn, 30, is already serving a 14-year sentence in Canberra's only jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
Today's new sentence will be served concurrently, so his time behind bars will not be extended.
The ACT Magistrates Court had previously heard on the day of the incident Quinn told prison staff he had swallowed a battery, and arrangements were made to take him to hospital for an assessment.
But before they could get there, the car was rammed at speed from behind by Quinn's girlfriend, Lila Walto, in a stolen car.
Walto pursued the car ramming it multiple times until it was finally stopped in Kingston, and the prison officers and Quinn fled.
Court documents show Quinn was complaining to the officers, saying: "Get out, they are going to f***ing kill me."
"Hurry up man, they're trying to … like kill me," he told officers.
His lawyers told the Magistrates Court he had known nothing of the plan to spring him from custody and thought someone was trying to get to him.
'There was no planning at all'
His lawyers said he had been presented with "an almost biblical level of temptation" when Walto called to him from her stolen 4WD, and had given in.
Magistrate Louise Taylor today said she accepted he did not know about the plan.
"The escape [happened] after Ms Walto provided the opportunity for it to occur," Magistrate Taylor said.
"There was no planning at all on his part.
"The decision to escape was made spontaneously and without forethought."
After escaping from custody, Quinn fled with Walto and the pair torched the car in the nearby suburb of Forrest.
The escape sparked a city-wide manhunt before police eventually found the pair at a home in Lyneham in Canberra's north after a tip-off.
Walto gave herself up soon afterwards, and others who were inside the house at the time came outside.
But court documents showed police reporting they could still hear noises inside the roof of the house.
A voice then called out: "I am not coming out."
Police said they then heard power tools being used.
Eventually, Quinn emerged from the house, still wearing the handcuffs placed on him by prison staff.
The cuffs had been cut from his left hand but a lock pick was jammed in the mechanism on the right.
Walto told police it was her plan and not Quinn's fault.
She said she had planned to start a new life together.
Evidence in her sentencing in the ACT Supreme Court revealed she had stolen the car during a test drive from a local car dealership and she had left a salesman at the side of the road.
She was sentenced to more than six years in jail over the matter.
In addition to the 16-month jail sentence, to be served concurrently, Quinn was also fined $3,500, after a separate incident when a female visitor to the jail had embraced him and placed an item down the front of his pants.
Prison officers later recovered a package after a short scuffle.
The court heard the package contained drugs including cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.
At the end of the case, Quinn thanked his lawyer and said: "I promise to behave."
