SECURITY at Newport magistrates court is to get a £67,500 overhaul after a number of defendants escaped from the dock.

Martin Tuft, 45, of Cambridge Road, Newport, (pictured) and Graham Woodward, 26, of Russell Drive, Malpas, yesterday admitted escaping from the court at the civic centre, and their co-accused, Stephen Swart, 37, of Bedford Road, Maindee, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted escape.

The incident happened on April 27 when all three appeared in court one for a preliminary hearing.

Tuft and Woodward climbed over a screen while Swart was restrained in the dock. Woodward was stopped in the court building but Tuft ran outside and got into a waiting car.

Eddie Harding, clerk to the justices at Gwent magistrates, told the Argus: "We had an attempted escape the week before but fortunately, although he got out of the dock, he did not get out of the court room.

"The escape of Mr Tuft made us think seriously about what we needed to put in place to ensure it did not happen again."

Mr Harding said: "Clearly the civic centre is an old building and we were aware that remedial work needed to be done.

"As an interim measure we stopped having prisoners delivered to the civic centre and redirected custody work to Caerphilly.

"We intended that only to be a temporary measure. Newport is a city and it would be laughable if it didn't have a proper magistrates' court capable of dealing with all types of work."

Mr Harding said an application was made to the Department of Constitutional Affairs for a grant to carry out remedial work and make improvements to the cells and CCTV, and an award of £67,500 was received.

This will cover the cost of the work, including putting 'lids' on the docks in both courts one and two.

Mr Harding said: "We've now been given the money and will go live again from January 1. That gives us three months to complete the work."