Credit: Dangerous Minds / Terry Nguyen

There’s a good reason why prison escapes are a mainstay of popular fiction and have been for pretty much as long as there’s been popular fiction. Yes, most people generally believe in the utility of the prison system (at the time of writing), but if there’s one thing that people believe in more, it’s individual liberty.

Deep down, people are achingly aware that the prison system and the justice system it operates at the behest of is flawed at its core. That no matter how much it might like to present itself as this all-knowing, all-powerful consequences machine, often, the opposite is true. That a number, possibly even a majority of people who harm others will never even trouble the doorstep of the prison they richly deserve and conversely, that prisons are full of people who really don’t deserve their fate.

Thus, you get the story of the prison break. Not Prison Break, the TV series, you understand, except it also kind of is an example of this, but I’m getting off topic. People who are often imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit or a crime that was justified, and took matters into their own hands. Often with an intensely detailed plan that involves several different parties all pulling off convoluted, complex steps to flee said prison.

Now, obviously, there’s going to be real-life examples of plans like this. However, most of the time when someone escapes from the clink, it’s less the result of a plan executed to perfection and more someone seizing upon a chance given to them because prisons are often barely functioning entities. Doors will be left unlocked, vans will be left running, and people will be mistakenly released. It’s nowhere near as glamorous in real life as it is in the movies.

At least, most of the time.

How Pascal Payet escaped prison three times straight

Pascal Payet was a hardened criminal.

He was no unfortunate soul brought in because he’d been seen at the wrong place at the wrong time and some witless copper needed to bring him in for their daily quota of arrests. In 1997, he was implicated in an armed robbery on a Banque de France armoured car that saw its guard killed on the scene. In 1999, he was arrested for his role in the robbery and murder and placed in prison until the trial began.

He lasted two years before he and a crew of fellow crims busted out by hijacking a helicopter that had been used to transport new inmates to their prison in Luynes. Incredibly, this worked so well that after Pascal escaped, they organised a second helicopter-assisted escape shortly after theirs was completed to help a few more of their mates break out as well. This proved to be a break too far, and Pascal, along with his crew, was arrested three weeks later.

These escapes made Payet a national hero (this is France after all), and he doubled down on this notoriety by speaking out against his treatment in captivity. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to worry about this because, despite being sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2005, he escaped again on Bastille Day 2007. The celebrations of the national holiday meant that four masked men were able to hijack, you guessed it, a helicopter and liberate him once more.

Payet was captured again and stayed in custody until 2019, when he has since been released on parole. To be fair, that is what they say about the French prison system. You may escape in a helicopter three times from them, but there sure won’t be a fourth!