'Criminal stupidity': Extraordinary NSW prison break attempt caught on camera

Remarkable video has been released showing a NSW prison break attempt described as "criminally stupid".

Prison officers were on alert from the moment the breakout started in the early hours of Tuesday morning last week.

Perhaps most incredibly, the would-be escapees were due for release from the minimum security prison within days.

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CCTV footage shows a car cruising into the empty Nowra Prison car park just after 4am - usually a quiet time so prison officers who were immediately suspicious.

Inside the car, there were two women. They flashed the brake lights twice and then drove into a parking spot.

Moments later they were greeted by corrective services officers.

"It is literally criminal that someone could be so stupid," the Corrective Services Minister, David Elliott said about the inmates and their accomplices.

It is wonderful to see that even at four in the morning that our corrective services officers are so alert."

Police joined the early morning catch up, searching the car and interviewing the women, who allegedly admitted coming to the prison to help with an escape.

Mr Elliott described them as “two people who thought they were above the law trying to help people that are being incarcerated”.

Then the plot switched from unsophisticated to unbelievable, as officers stormed a common room.

The cell was raided and ceilings were searched as the inmates were lined up against a wall and warned not to “move from that position”.

Officers found more evidence of an attempted escape while they were there: in the garbage bin, a cut up sheet tied together like a rope.

Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin said the plan was “cunning" but “it's also stupid, obviously”.

It could also be costly - in tax dollars and time.

Investigators are still piecing together exactly who was involved but two minimum security inmates who were on the verge of release have been moved to maximum security, which could become their new home for a lot longer.

"What drove them to actually make good their escape I don't know, but most certainly now they will get extra time added to their sentence and will continue to be in maximum security," Mr Severin said.