Prisoner at large after riding a tractor to freedom
Police are searching for an inmate after he escaped a prison farm in a red tractor while on work duty in what officers said was a first.
A manhunt is underway after an inmate escaped a prison farm in a tractor.
Michael Graeme Rennie, 43, was last seen using the machinery on work duty at Lotus Glen Low Custody Correctional Centre in far north Queensland.
Rennie likely left the farm in the red-coloured tractor on Sunday morning, Detective Inspector Jason Chetham said.
“I haven’t heard that one before,” he told reporters on Monday.
“There have obviously been prisoners abscond from the corrections centre up there in the past but I don’t think anyone’s left on a tractor.”
Police are on the lookout for the heavily tattooed Rennie, who is serving more than six years for motor vehicle, weapon, drug and other offences that include serious assault, theft and burglary.
Police have released a picture of Rennie and the tractor he was using when he escaped the Atherton Tablelands prison farm near Cairns on Sunday.
“The Tablelands is an agricultural centre so tractors on the road I don’t think are something that would turn a lot of heads, but we’re keen to find it anyway,” Det Insp Chetham said.
Rennie is described as Caucasian and 174cm tall, with blue eyes and fair hair.
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He has multiple tattoos, including a gun on his left shoulder, a demon holding a skull with horns on his left arm, and a full sleeve on his right arm.
Rennie also has multiple dog bites and scars on his left arm, police said.
He was from the state’s far north and there had been a “number of sightings” of the tractor, Det Insp Chetham said.
“We don’t have specific concerns about what he might do in the community … but we certainly ask people not to approach him and to call us immediately if they have any information,” he said.
A 28-year-old man serving two years for break-and-enter offences escaped from the prison farm in February 2023, and was arrested three days later.
