A Tongan criminal is on the loose in Sydney after stabbing and assaulting two detention centre contractors who were taking him to the airport to be deported, but police took 12 hours to release an image of him to the public.
Paea Teu, 28, was being taken to the airport from Villawood Detention Centre in a silver van on Thursday morning when he attacked his two guards with a sharpened metal object at 3.40am and fled on foot in the suburb of Clyde in the city’s west.
A 54-year-old man was stabbed in the neck and cheek and a 36-year-old man was punched, police said, adding that how he managed to obtain the weapon and how he escaped were still under investigation.
Despite the violence that unfolded during the escape, NSW Police did not release an image of Teu until after 3pm, telling members of the public not to approach the fugitive but to call Triple Zero instead. Police said they could not comment on the delay for “operational reasons”.
The Australian Border force has not released any information about Teu, and told the Australian Associated Press it did not comment on individual cases.
“Any attack on workers carrying out their jobs is abhorrent,” an ABF spokesperson said.
“The ABF supports all its staff and service providers, especially those who are subjected to abuse and assault while trying to do their jobs.”
Police described Teu as being of “Pacific Islander/Maori appearance, with a tanned complexion, a large build, about 180cm tall with black hair, dark eyes and is unshaven. At the time he was wearing a black coat, black track pants and black and white sneakers”.
It’s understood he was known to police, and was being deported for overstaying his visa.
The escape occurred just a week after American private prison operator Management and Training Corporation (MTC) and its subsidiary Secure Journeys took over management of Australia’s onshore detention centre system from trouble-plagued UK giant Serco on a $2.3 billion five-year contract.
MTC has faced allegations of major security failures and misconduct while running private prisons, including that a US citizen was wrongly held in solitary confinement for 14 months, that a woman was gang-raped in detention, and that two retirees were murdered by escaped prisoners, The Guardian reported.
The United Workers Union told AAP it had concerns about MTC staffing levels and that there had been “significant changes” to how the detention centre network’s transportation system was staffed and operated.
“Two officers are insufficient for this difficult and dangerous role,” union official Godfrey Moase said.
A former ABF officer told Noticer News the previous contract with Serco was “one of the worst ever signed” and that its guards were low-paid and tended to be foreigners in Australia on working visas.
“It’s already insanely difficult to detain and remove people with all the High Court and Federal Court decisions and hostile NGOs. ABF also has a real problem with Use of Force protocols for its officers and there’s this ridiculous cultural aversion to using it in high risk environments such as search warrants,” they said.
“[They] have no interest in addressing it, they’re more interested in the safety of violent foreigners that have had their visas cancelled, Welcome to Country ceremonies and not using the Australian flag at Home Affairs.”
Last year a Nigerian detainee awaiting deportation at Villawood was charged with running an alleged drug ring from inside the detention centre, and an ABF commander said a “prison-like culture” had developed, with drug and alcohol use increasing and detainees using violence and standover tactics.
Header image: Left, Paea Teu. Right, Teu running away during his escape (NSW Police).
