A prisoner who escaped from Mountjoy on Saturday afternoon was still missing last night after walking out of the prison carrying her baby.
Melody McGovern (24), from Ballybough, was serving a four month sentence for larceny and receiving stolen goods and was also on remand on a further charge of larceny.
Her case on this further charge was due to have been heard yesterday.
In the first escape from a closed prison in recent years, McGovern managed to exit the prison compound after a visit from relatives. Prison sources said that she was visited by family members at 2 p.m. in a communal room. The visit ended at about 4 p.m.
As her relatives were preparing to leave she picked her baby up and walked out with them. She had been wearing casual clothes and was able to slip out of the prison unnoticed.
She was later spotted on security cameras leaving the prison grounds with her baby in her arms.
McGovern had not been stopped by security personnel as she was leaving the prison.
Her escape was first noticed about two hours later when a warden discovered that she had not returned to her cell. After an extensive search of the prison grounds she was officially declared missing at 7.30 on Saturday evening.
Mr Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the Prison Service, said last night that there was no truth to an allegation that the prison authorities had tried to cover up the escape by granting McGovern retrospective temporary release. Mr Mitchell said that any such application would have to be approved by the head office of the Prison Service, and no request had been received.
He said that Ms McGovern's baby had been brought into the prison by relatives who were visiting her. "We don't operate glass screens in visits where young children are involved, on humanitarian grounds", he added.
Mr Mitchell said it was normal practice for the prison authorities to accommodate moth ers nursing infants, who would sometimes be allowed to keep their babies with them in prison. However, that was not the case in this instance.
He believed McGovern was likely to have returned to her home area of Ballybough.
All 12 previous escapes from prison custody since January 2000 have involved prisoners under escort to and from court and this is the first time a prisoner has escaped from within the confines of a prison building in that period.
A spokesman for Mountjoy Prison said that the governor was leading an investigation into the escape.