LOCKY BREAK
Inside audacious ‘Escape From Pretoria’ where prisoners fled hellhole jail by carving wooden keys for ELEVEN metal doors
SLOUCHED on his bed in the small, dingy cell of the notorious jail where he was destined to spend the next 12 years, Tim Jenkin had a flash of inspiration.
In front of him was a lock - and the sight of it was enough to propel him to his feet and set to work making a wooden key that would help him and fellow inmate Stephen Lee make it to freedom.
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The jaw-dropping story of how two men broke out of the infamous maximum-security Pretoria Prison - and eventually on to the UK - has been given the Hollywood treatment in new blockbuster 'Escape From Pretoria', starring Daniel Radcliffe as Tim.
The pair ended up behind bars in the South African city of Tshwane in 1979 due to their roles as white supporters of Nelson Mandela’s then-banned African National Congress (ANC).
They were determined to fight the county’s unjust apartheid regime which had enforced racial segregation since 1948.
For three years they set off harmless ‘leaflet bombs’ - explosive devices at the bottom of a shopping bag that could distribute 500 propaganda pamphlets in one 'bang' - spreading word of the liberation movement in public places.
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As such, they were brought to the attention of South Africa's secret police.
“The moment we heard the knocking on the door, we knew that was it,” Tim told .
The pair were initially kept in solitary confinement for a month before being charged with political "terrorism" in a trial in June 1978.
While Tim - the technical mastermind - was sentenced to 12 years in jail, his friend Stephen got eight years. But they wouldn't see out their time...
Notorious jail housed chilling gallows
They were sent to Pretoria Central Prison - since renamed Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area - where prisoners were divided up depending on their race.
Tim and Stephen were hauled off to a special "European" section called "The Local" for white inmates which housed up to 22.
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At the time it was the site of the country’s capital punishment regime (which was abolished in 1995), and housed its death row.
In an area called "The Pot", there was a legendary gallows where seven could be hung at once.
The prison, constructed from stone and steel, had gone down in prisoner folklore as being a fortress from which no one could ever hope to escape.
'Impossible' escape route
Stephen and Tim began devising ways to break out as soon as they arrived.
“It was gut-wrenching the length of time we were given,” Stephen recalled.
They were so convinced that they'd soon find a way out that they had money smuggled in to use for taxi fares once they got out.
However, escaping - something no inmate had successfully done before - was going to be no easy task.
“There were numerous gates, many metal grill doors. At night there were dogs in the yard,” Stephen told .
There was also a six-metre high barbed-wire perimeter fence. Their fellow inmates told them they’d never make it.
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Undeterred, Tim said: “From the very first day, we started to collect intelligence about possible escape routes.”
Stephen deliberately engineered a trip to the dentist that allowed him to pick up vital information for their potential route out.
He discovered to his horror that there were ten doors they had to make it through.
Getaway key carved from wood
After his brainwave about fashioning a lock for his cell door while lying on his bunk bed, Tim felt confident the plan would work.
He had done it before.
“In my early years I had learned to pick the back door lock at home with a piece of wire,” he explained.
The inmate took a piece of paper, stuffed it into the lock using a knife and measured the depth. This was how he knew how long the key needed to be.
Then, one day he was working in a carpentry workshop and it struck him that the key could be wooden.
“I started to carve a few little pieces of wood, one for the shaft and one for the bit of the key,” Tim told .
“We had to make these parts under the noses of the guards. We just hoped that nobody would see us."
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The layout of the prison cell Tim escaped fromAfter making most of the key in his first week, Tim also needed to smuggle it back to his cell.
"I just took the chance and carried the parts of the key and tools we needed, a triangular file and some glue in a Thermos flask," he said.
“It was dangerous, they did have regular inspections. My heart was racing. But we got away with it.”
The wooden key didn’t work at first. But fortunately the metal of the keyhole marked where it was getting jammed, meaning Tim could accurately file it down to size.
“I took the file that I brought, and I had the lock in front of me so I could keep testing it,” he explained of the agonisingly slow process.
It was dangerous, they did have regular inspections. My heart was racing. But we got away with it.
To make matters more complicated, he could only unlock his cell door from the outside, and used a broomstick he had been allowed to hang on to for cleaning with the key attached to the end so that he could reach.
When he finally unlocked his cell door after two whole months of filing, he was overjoyed
“Boom this thing just slid open, absolutely smoothly. I just couldn’t believe it.”
Stephen remembers the exact moment he had heard the lock click. “It was hugely emotional. This was going to let us out of the cells into the corridor.”
Boiler suit dummies to fool guards
Tim's door was just the beginning. The key, fortunately, also worked for the door of Stephen's neighbouring cell.
But he needed to create another one to make it into the next part of the prison.
It couldn’t be reached by his cell, so he had to gradually fit that second key to size doing stints cleaning the corridor during prisoners' chore times.
Tim did eventually carve a key to fit, but when he tried it the bolt jammed and he had to return to his cell. A guard who found it assumed a colleague was to blame.
Door three fortunately worked with the same key as the inner cell door. At this point, a third prisoner, Alex Moumbaris joined the escape effort.
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Each night after lights went out, the trio sneaked out of their cells - once Tim had used the first key to unlock them all - to try and get through an extra door.
It took them months to crack the fourth lock.
Door five and six were near the night warden’s office, so they hatched a plan to leave dummies made from boiler suits stuffed with sheets in their beds so they could hide in a cupboard while he went to check on their cells.
“We would spot the night warden and your heart is just pumping," said Tim. "You get back to your cell and you’d think, 'OK, it’s over, I can relax' but you couldn’t."
Desperate race against police
It took them a year to get as far as door eleven, the final one. They had to leave it untested until the actual night of their escape, December 11, 1979 - 18 months after their conviction.
In the end, it was the selfless actions of a fourth prisoner, Denis Goldberg - who had been sentenced alongside Mandela, and who would ultimately serve 22 years - who made their bid for freedom a reality.
“There was only one guard on duty and he was chatting to Denis,” said Stephen, recalling how he kept him distracted.
“We got through the nine doors and then at the final door, we found we couldn’t open the lock.
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"Just in case, we had brought a chisel. I was so worried – it was making a tremendous noise.
"We were right underneath an armed guard but he didn’t see us. We walked out as if we had every right to be there."
It took until the next day for guards to realise they were missing, and a huge police operation to recapture them was launched.
From the jail they took trains, hitchhiked and walk 25 miles to make it to the border of Swaziland - now called Eswatini.
After that they made it to Mozambique, Angola, and then on to Europe.
"I wanted to run but we just kept walking to the railway station, where we used our money to get in a taxi," Stephen said.
The pair, who are both now in their 70s, settled in north London, with Tim eventually relocating to Johannesburg years later.
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After the escape, the prison was refurbished to improve security. Its reputation as a hellhole jail remains, and these days it houses - among 7,000 inmates - none other than disgraced Olympic champion Oscar Pistorius.
There has only been one successful prison break since. In 2006 a dangerous inmate, Annanias Mathe (a serial rapist charged with 51 counts of murder), got out but was caught again two weeks later.
Recalling their rather more successful attempt, Stephen explained: “The sense of freedom was amazing. I felt so elated."
But, as Tim noted, they were escaping from an imprisonment they never deserved.
"I’m glad I played the part I did," he said. "I’m glad that we escaped. It was a victory over the system.”
Escape From Pretoria is released in UK cinemas on Friday, March 6
New Amazon Prime documentary explores the case of Oscar Pistorius who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013
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