Artur WOJCIK - Escaping from correctional facility

On 6 June 2018, 48-year-old Artur Wojcik, a Polish national, was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment, in addition to his existing non-parole period of 6 years and 8 months for importing 2.29kg of pure cocaine, after he was sentenced for escaping from Mannus Correctional Facility in Tumbarumba in early April 2016.

Wojcik was originally arrested on 28 October 2009 at Sydney International Airport with cocaine in his suitcase and sentenced on 2 September 2011, after being found guilty of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

With a non-parole period of 6 years and 8 months (and a head sentence of 10 years and 8 months), Wojcik would notionally have been eligible for release on 27 June 2016. But sometime during the night between 7­–8 April 2016―with 80 days remaining on his non-parole period―he escaped through the top of a cell window.

Correctional Services staff carried out an evening check at 5.00pm on 7 April 2016 and Wojcik was in his one-person cell. But when they conducted their next check at 7.30am the following morning, he was gone.

On 18 December 2017, 619 days after his escape, Victorian Police arrested Wojcik in Abbotsford Victoria.

He will now be eligible for parole on 18 December 2018.

Charge/sentence:

On 6 June 2018, Artur Jerzy Wojcik was sentenced to 9 months imprisonment (in addition to his existing non-parole period of 6 years and 8 months) in relation to:

• 1 charge of escaping from federal criminal detention, contrary to s47(1) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth).