Of the many escape attempts in Long Bay Correctional Centre’s lengthy history, none was quite as brazen as Russell “Mad Dog” Cox’s. Using a hacksaw smuggled in for the purpose, Cox cut away at the barred exercise yard roof while doing chin ups day after day. Finally, on 4 November, 1977, while returning unaccompanied to the yard to get his shoes, he climbed through the gap to freedom. After spending more than a decade on the run, including about five years overseas, he was captured after a standoff with police at a Melbourne shopping centre. Cox was the first and only inmate to escape from Long Bay’s Supermax Katingal block. The bars in the reconstruction are the actual ones that he affected his 1977 bid for freedom through.

They can been seen at the Corrective Services NSW Museum, Cooma.