COVID makes fugitive surrender… after 30 years

As reported by Sky News:

A fugitive who is alleged to have used a hacksaw blade and bolt cutters to escape from prison nearly 30 years ago has given himself up - because a city's COVID lockdown made him homeless.

Darko Desic walked into a police station in Sydney because his work as a handyman had been hit by the Australian city's coronavirus restrictions.

Now 64, he surrendered at Dee Why Police Station on Sunday and was denied bail when he appeared in court on Tuesday, charged with escaping from lawful custody in 1992, according to a police statement.

Sydney's lockdown, which started in June, had cost Desic his cash-in-hand work as a labourer and handyman, police sources told Sydney's Daily Telegraph and Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“He slept on the beach on Saturday night and said, ‘stuff it, I'll go back to prison where there’s a roof over my head’,” a source told the newspaper.