On Sunday November 26 1978, two IRA gunmen kicked in the front door of a house in Evelyn Gardens in north Belfast where Maze prison official Albert Miles lived. They executed Miles in front of his family and vanished into the night.
In 1983 Kevin Barry Artt, a 24-year-old Catholic taxi driver, was convicted and sentenced to life for the murder, after being falsely named by IRA supergrass Christopher Black. On his way to the Maze in handcuffs, Artt resolutely professed his innocence.
Six weeks into his life sentence, he escaped in one of the most daring and notorious prison breaks in history, fleeing to California and going underground.
An epic legal saga followed, spanning one ocean, two court systems and nearly three decades, as Artt was relentlessly pursued by the British government, aided by the US state department and the FBI.
US lawyer Dan Lawton discovered the vital piece of evidence that caused the NI Court of Appeal to throw out Artt’s murder case in 2020. In his book Hunted, Lawton has forensically chronicled Artt’s surreal story of survival and redemption.
This extract from Hunted captures the chaotic nature of the Maze escape and how Artt made a slow and delayed exit
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INSTEAD of going for the perimeter fence, some escapees turned right and dashed into the guards’ car park just to the outside of the perimeter wall.
There, prison guard William Gallagher, who had blocked the main gate with his car only minutes before, was parking his car, a yellow Toyota Celica.
An officer had told him to get it out of the way so the main gate could be shut again.
Just as Gallagher backed into the guards’ parking lot, he saw the incredible sight of men running pell-mell out of the Tally Lodge.
Before Gallagher could exit his car and lock it, an onrushing Jimmy Donnelly threw the driver’s side door open. He roughly pulled Gallagher out.
Gallagher had seen Donnelly coming and taken the keys out of the ignition an instant before Donnelly could lay hands on him. Now Gallagher flung the keys away, towards a group of guards nearby.
Brendy Mead and another guard now lunged for the keys, which lay on the ground. Mead got there first, inches ahead of the guard. He feigned bending down to pick up the keys. Then he rose out of a crouch, balled his fist and hit the guard in the throat as hard as he could. The guard dropped to the ground as though poleaxed.
Mead scooped up the keys and dashed back to Gallagher’s car. Kevin’s heart was racing as he came upon the scene. He felt like it might explode out of his chest. He caught a glimpse of the open green fields beyond the perimeter fence.
In front of him was a yellow Toyota Celica, a two-door coupé. Kevin saw escapees piling into it. He dove in the passenger-side window, a split second before Brendy Mead shouted at everyone to lock the doors and roll up the windows.
Mead and Jaz McCann were in front, with Mead at the wheel. Kevin lay on the laps of the three in the back seat – Jimmy Burns, Jimmy Donnelly and Paul Kane.
As Mead sped towards the external gate, he could see a British soldier and two prison officers struggling to close it.
“Hold tight,” Mead yelled.
Just before Mead could get there, the two officers dropped the vertical bar which secured the gate into the ground and scampered aside.
Mead kept the hurtling Celica pointed at dead centre, where the gates met. The throttle of the little four-cylinder engine was all the way open. Anticipating the crash, the men, packed together like sardines, braced themselves in various positions.
The British soldier stood, seemingly frozen, between the onrushing car and the gate. He waited until the last instant to dive out of the way.
Mead shut his eyes just before the moment of impact.
The front of the car smashed into the left-hand side of the gate, sending it flying open. The impact threw the rear of the car sideways and it crashed into the right-hand side of the gate, which flew all the way open.
The car came to rest between the two gates, jammed into a gap between them, with the left gate at a 45-degree angle against the right front wheel arch.
Everybody but Donnelly bailed out, scrambled over the bonnet of the little car as it sat jammed in the gate, and took off running.
Off went Kevin out the passenger door, following Paul Kane. As he scrambled out the gate, he saw the soldier who manned the gate unholster his pistol.
By 4.25pm, just 13 minutes after sirens started wailing, the army, UDR and RUC were activating Operation Vesper, the code name for a coordinated effort to capture escaped prisoners. A cordon of vehicle checkpoints swiftly went up on all roads leading away from the Maze, two miles distant from its walls.
Kevin Barry Artt was still inside the cordon. He was dressed in civilian clothes – a pair of blue jeans and a dark blue denim shirt, the clothes he had put on before breakfast in his cell that morning.
He was running as hard as he could.
Kevin breathed and tried to hide himself from the soldiers he was sure would be swarming the area any minute. He still had no plan. He had exited the Maze without one, had never thought to plan an escape route away from it. He was still only about 150 yards outside the perimeter wall.
What to do now?
Kevin burrowed into the earth, pulled weeds and brambles close around himself, then lay prone, his head resting on his arms, waiting, waiting for the soldiers to go away. He overheard the soldiers’ desultory conversation. They were bitching to one another about sore feet and double shifts.
Kevin lay still and quiet, breathing, waiting, doing his best to meld into the earth and be invisible, like a rabbit hiding from a predator in its hole. He had long since abandoned the idea of meeting up with the waiting IRA team from south Armagh. That team had retreated anyway, after hearing reports that the escapees were on foot and in the open.
When, at last, the soldiers mounted up and drove away, it was nearly 8pm. Kevin crossed the road, into the housing estate, looking for clothes and any mode of transportation he could lay hands on. He slipped into the back garden of the first house he came to.
There were two vehicles parked in the driveway. Kevin stole up to the driver’s side door of the first one, planning to hot-wire it if it were unlocked. It was locked. So was the second car. There was no shed in the back.
Kevin breathed and tried to hide himself from the soldiers he was sure would be swarming the area any minute. He still had no plan. He had exited the Maze without one, had never thought to plan an escape route away from it. He was still only about 150 yards outside the perimeter wall. What to do now?
Kevin moved on to the next house, then a third. It had a small shed in the back garden. He tiptoed towards it, with his head swivelling around and his eyes darting from house to house, alert to the sight of anyone who might see him. There was no-one. Everything was still. Kevin eased the shed’s door open. It was on the latch, unlocked and Kevin eased himself inside.
It was dark in there. But there was enough ambient light to discern the shapes of bicycles leaning against the wall. Kevin’s heart leapt at the sight of them.
Just as he moved towards them there was a sudden burst of light outside the shed. Kevin crept to the door and peeked out. Inside the house, a man had gone into the upstairs bathroom and turned on the light.
It shone partly out into the back garden. Kevin heard the man gargling. He knew it meant he had not been seen.
Leaving the shed door ajar, Kevin let the light from the bathroom into the shed. It fell on the bikes. Kevin selected the biggest one.
Moving as stealthily as he could, he manoeuvred it to the door. Then he spied a button-up cardigan hanging near the door.
Perfect. On it went.
Kevin noiselessly exited the shed and eased the door shut.
He was still within 200 yards of the main gate of the Maze prison. Kevin walked the bike down the side of the house, out onto the street.
There were kids playing out there under the streetlights, shouting at one another. He acted casual, mounting the bike. He started to pedal down the street.
When he came to where the kids were, he waved at them as he pedalled past. It wasn’t quite Steve McQueen, but it would have to do.
Hunted: The Kevin Barry Artt Story - His Wrongful Conviction for Murder, Daring Escape from the Maze Prison and Long Fight for Justice, by Dan Lawton is published by Merrion Press, £17.99
