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29 September 2023 / Roger Smith
Issue: 8042 / Categories: Opinion , Constitutional law
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Prison escapes & constitutional lessons

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Roger Smith muses on breakouts, scapegoats & political expediencies

On 7 September 2023, Alex Chalk made a Commons statement on the escape of Daniel Khalife from HM Prison Wandsworth. The lord chancellor announced a positive flood of investigations including the individual circumstances of the escape, categorisation and placement of prisoners within Wandsworth, the location of convicted terrorists within the prison estate, and the training of prison staff. He ended with what was clearly intended as a positive rallying cry: ‘Daniel Khalife will be found and he will be made to face justice.’

All this was as you might expect. The usual shouting after the barn door closes. It is as it ever has been. Five Category A prisoners have escaped since 1995 (Khalife was category B). Around ten prisoners have escaped from prison or escort per year during the past decade. Escapes come with prisons. Notoriously, Ronnie Biggs hopped over the walls of Wandsworth in 1965. Walter ‘Angel Face’ Probyn, the ‘Hoxton Houdini’, escaped from prison 16 times back in the

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