[2] A former ward of the state of Western Australia, Abbott continues to suffer anxiety and related health disorders, as noted in a semi-biographical work, Australian Outlaw, by Derek Pedley.

On 24 November 1989 Abbott dressed in the false uniform, cut through the bars in the workshop 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."

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.

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.

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.

[5] He was released from solitary confinement in May 2004 and returned there on a Maximum Security Order in April 2006, after he requested medical attention three times in 12 months.

A 1994 warrant for questioning remains in place with Adelaide Criminal Prosecutions Branch for one count of armed robbery in Glenelg, South Australia.

[6] Hunt's story concludes with an unnamed source's suspicions that Abbott could have committed not just the one he is sought for questioning over, but multiple robberies in South Australia.

[9] However, former WA Corrective Services Minister, Margaret Quirk, promptly released a media statement rejecting Abbott's bid to return home.

In May 2010, Glenn Cordingley of The Sunday Times in Perth, cited an unnamed Western Australian police source who alleged that WA authorities "had a cell waiting" for Abbott, although there had been no official confirmation of such.

The court said the original sentences were appropriate, and it would not intervene on the basis of mercy, noting Abbott had also deliberately committed subsequent crimes that led to his imprisonment in Queensland.