and gained access to the guard's walkway, he made his way across the rooftop and out of the prison grounds. This escape earned Abbott his lifelong notoriety as a criminal genius, and ultimately led to his permanent and erroneous branding as "the postcard bandit." In the almost 150-year history Fremantle Prison was operational, Abbott is the only prisoner to escape and never return due to its closure in 1991. Fugitive 1989–1995 While Reynolds was arrested within weeks of the Fremantle escape, Abbott went on to establish himself as a "professional" bank robber, believed to have been responsible for "40 to 50" bank robberies across Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland's Gold Coast. Working in Abbott's favour, the Adelaide police force was structured with each suburb having its own CIB office, limiting communication between the departments and making Adelaide a repeated target. Rivalry between the states made intelligence sharing minimal and Western Australian Police were yet to issue a warrant for Abbott's arrest almost five years following the escape. By 1994 the police states compromised and agreed to work together. Elevated to the status of Australia's most wanted man, his five-and-a-half years on the run came to an end when police tracked down a post-office box on Queensland's Gold Coast used by Abbott, which was found to contain a pager bill registered to the address where he was living. On 26 March 1995 Abbott was recaptured. Media reports in the 1990s said Abbott sent postcards of his travels to the Western Australian Police. However, the story was a WA Police media unit concoction; the "postcards" were photos Abbott lost while running from police with Aaron Reynolds after the Fremantle Prison escape, and were intended for his friends and family. They included a picture of Reynolds outside the Dwellingup police station. Sir David Longland Prison escape – 1997 On 5 November 1997, less than three years after his recapture, Abbott escaped with four other prisoners from Sir David Longland Prison at Wacol, Queensland. Using angel wire—diamond-encrusted wire—smuggled into the prison to cut through the bars in their cells, the escapees made it to the perimeter sensor fence where they were thrown bolt cutters by an accomplice, Brendan Berichon, who had been released in September. Uncharacteristically for Abbott, the escape from Sir David Longland Prison in November 1997 involved actual force rather than an implied threat of force. While cutting through the sensor