A GOLD Coast model who spent three months on the run escaped custody by squeezing herself through a police car window while handcuffed, a court has heard.

Renee Elizabeth Tarbuck, 34, of Highland Park, was so proud of her “Houdini-style” escape she sent selfies of her wrists – with a set of police handcuffs still attached – to a friend. The friend, Tarryn Lamos, then promptly gave the selfies to police.

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Tarbuck was convicted of stealing police handcuffs and escaping lawful custody in Southport Magistrates Court last month.

She has also agreed to plead guilty to charges of trafficking in ecstasy from her Gold Coast home between May 2012 and May 2013.

According to a police brief tendered in the Supreme Court when she applied for bail last week, Tarbuck was arrested on May 11 at a shopping centre in Merrimac and handcuffed with her hands behind her back.

But while the two officers who arrested her were busy saving her three pedigree dogs, which had run into traffic, Tarbuck contorted herself until her handcuffs were in front of her body before escaping and driving off in her car.

An arrest warrant was issued on May 22, but Tarbuck went on the run until she was arrested in Nerang on August 13.

She is now in Brisbane women’s jail at Wacol, awaiting sentence for the drug trafficking.

media_camera Renee Tarbuck allegedly wasn’t shy in boasting about her escape.

In court last week, Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson said Tarbuck has previously been convicted of six offences against the Bail Act, including two of failing to appear.

A police operation was set up just to investigate Tarbuck’s drug dealing, court documents state.

It was triggered after her Highland Park house was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting on Australia Day in 2013.

Mr Jackson told the court Tarbuck would sell drugs on credit then threaten those who wouldn’t pay.

She also used debt collectors to force payment and took jewellery, mobile phones or computers as payment for drugs.

She sold an “eight ball” (an eighth of an ounce, or 3.5g) of ecstasy for $1850, or cut the price to $1650 if it was poor quality, and offered “try before you buy” to special customers. She had a base of regular clients who came to collect drugs from her home.

Tarbuck’s home was repossessed earlier this year after she didn’t pay her mortgage.

She was refused bail by Justice David Boddice on October 23, and he told her he was unable to accept her guilty plea to the trafficking charge until she had been assessed as mentally competent.

The case will return to court on November 17.