Police searching for a man on the run from a forensic disability cottage at Holtze prison were warned the man may be armed, violent, and mentally ill, which is at odds with NT Police telling the public it did not believe he was a risk, The Australian has reported.

NT Police director of communications Mark Wilton said in a 9am statement the 21-year-old escaped from what he described as a facility on Willard Road, in Howard Springs understood to be the forensic disability cottages at Holtze prison. The prison is on Willard Rd.

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