Trouble in three places: where next for Derek Brockwell?

Police in the Republic, England and North discuss what should happen to criminal (53)

A handout photo of Derek Brockwell issued by the Irish Prison Service. Photograph: PA Wire.
A handout photo of Derek Brockwell issued by the Irish Prison Service. Photograph: PA Wire.

Police in the Republic, England and Northern Ireland are liaising together to decide what should happen to criminal Derek Brockwell who escaped from prison officer custody on Tuesday.

Brockwell (53) underwent what one source described as "major surgery" in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast following his arrest in Belfast city centre on Wednesday night.

Originally from Glasgow in Scotland, Brockwell was spotted by PSNI officers drinking outside the Wetherspoon’s Bridge House pub on Bedford Street in Belfast city centre on Wednesday evening.

The officers had been following up a robbery and an attempted robbery that Brockwell allegedly committed earlier in the day.

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With Brockwell’s record as a violent criminal the PSNI sought assistance from its armed reaction unit which went to the pub to arrest him. But as Supt Darrin Jones explained, “On police approaching him he produced a knife and proceeded to stab himself in the abdomen.”

He added: “To ensure no further injuries were caused to the man or others police discharged a taser. He was then taken to hospital for treatment.”

PSNI sources said his injuries were not life-threatening but that nonetheless they required quite major surgery and that he is expected to be in hospital for some time.

Brockwell is now wanted in three jurisdictions. He is wanted in Northern Ireland because before his dramatic arrest he allegedly robbed one pharmacy and attempted to rob a second.

He faces four charges: armed robbery with a knife, attempted robbery and two counts of weapons possession.

Staff at the Urban pharmacy on the Dublin Road a short distance from Wetherspoon’s said that a man matching Brockwell’s description threatened them with a knife during the robbery in which he escaped with a small sum of money.

He is also wanted by gardaí in Dublin after he escaped from custody on Tuesday while at Tallaght Hospital where he was receiving medical treatment. In that incident he stabbed two of the prison officers who were guarding him.

He was serving a seven-year sentence in Portlaoise prison for an armed robbery in Blackrock, Co Dublin in 2012.

Brockwell is further wanted in England as he fled to Ireland in 2012 after absconding from Kirkham prison in Lancashire. He failed to return to prison after being released to work in the community. He had been sentenced to 22 life sentences for a series of armed robberies in England and had served 13 years.

It is unclear which jurisdiction will have first call on Brockwell. “He is currently receiving medical treatment but we will want to be speaking to him and he has been arrested on suspicion of the robbery and an attempted robbery,” said PSNI Superintendent Paula Hilman on Thursday.

"We are also liaising with our colleagues in An Garda Síochána and in Lancashire Constabulary as he is wanted within those jurisdictions as well," she added.