Britain's most infamous prison escapes as hunt continues for suspected terrorist
A national manhunt has continued today for suspected terrorist Daniel Abed Khalife, who reportedly escaped from prison by clinging to a delivery truck from the prison kitchen.
Huge delays were reported at Edinburgh and Manchester airports yesterday as Counter Terrorism police checked IDs of passengers in an effort to track him down before he potentially leaves the country. Khalife was on remand at HMP Wandsworth, a category B prison while awaiting trial in relation to terrorism and Official Secrets Act offences. He is accused of planting a fake bomb at a military base.
The 21-year-old's escape has prompted a furious reaction, including from Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan - who said she raised concerns about staff shortages "months ago" at the prison. The case joins a long history of shocking high-profile escapes from UK prisons, which have exposed shocking lapses in security at supposedly watertight jails.
Khalife is accused of planting a fake bomb at a military base and denies all charges (Metropolitan Police/AFP via Gett)Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs breaks out of Wandsworth, 1965
The youngest and most notorious of the train robbers, Ronnie was jailed for his part in an audacious £2.6million robbery of a Royal Mail train in 1963. But he escaped from Wandsworth Prison 15 months later, going won to spend 36 years on the run around the world, becoming the face of the world-famous robbery.
He broke out with three other prisoners after a ladder was thrown the wall from the outside during the prisoners' afternoon exercise. The men quickly lowered themselves into a van outside, and were driven away in three cars.
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Biggs spent almost four decades living a playboy lifestyle in Rio de Janeiro, but finally surrendered to British police in 2001 after returning to Britain due to ill health. He died in 2013 aged 84.
'Mad Axeman' Frank Mitchell escapes Dartmoor with help of Kray twins, 1966
Frank Mitchell - nicknamed the 'Mad Axeman' for his frightening attack on an elderly couple in their own home - escaped from Broadmoor, a criminal mental institution in Berkshire on on December 12, 1966. It sparked what was then the nation's largest ever manhunt.
Around 200 policemen, 100 Royal Marines and a Royal Air Force helicopter searched the moors to no avail, and Mitchell was never seen again. He had escaped while deployed on a job to fix fencing on a firing range at Bagga Tor with fellow prisoners, and told the one prison officer on supervision that he was going to feed nearby Dartmoor ponies.
His pickup in a nearby car was arranged by famous gangland brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Though it was reported they later had him killed in a feud, Ronnie claimed he was never murdered and was instead smuggled out of the country with his and Reggie's help.
George Blake, double KGB agent, who escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in London in 1966 (PA)
Frank Mitchell - nicknamed the 'Mad Axeman' - escaped from Broadmoor in 1966 with the help of the Kray twins (Press Association)Soviet spy George Blake flees Wormwood Scrubs, 1966
During the Cold War, double agent George Blake gave the KGB the names of several hundred British agents, most of them living behind the Iron Curtain - leading to their execution.
He was jailed for espionage in 1961, but five years later was sprung from Wormwood Scrubs prison after he scaled the wall on a ladder made from knitting needles. Blake fled to East Germany then Russia, and died in Moscow in 2020 at the age of 98. Despite expressing his wishes to do so several times in his later years, he never returned to the United Kingdom under fear of being arrested upon re-entry.
IRA prisoners go on the run from Whitemoor, 1994
Before this week's debacle, the last famous escape involving a terrorism inmate was the escape of six IRA prisoners from Cambridgeshire's Whitemoor Prison in 1994. After smuggling a gun into the prison, the men wounded one officer and left the facility's special secure unit, before being recaptured a few minutes later. A report by chief inspector of constabulary Sir John Woodcock found that the incident was "a disaster waiting to happen" and identified failures at multiple levels of the prison service.
Just under a decade before, 38 inmates connected to the IRA escaped in a mass breakout from the Maze prison in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, which had been thought to be 'escape-proof'. They had also smuggled the guns inside and used them to seize a food van, and only 19 of them were ever caught. The rest were later given amnesty.
Convicted murderer John Massey escaped from Pentonville prison back in 2012 (PA)John Massey escapes from Pentonville, 2012
John Massey was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years for shooting dead a bouncer in 1975. But two decades were added to his sentence following violent incidents while inside, and he either escaped prison or breached licence conditions four times to be beside family members who were ill or dying.
In his final break from HMP Pentonville in Islington back in 2012, he is believed to have hid in the prison’s gym until he could sneak on to the roof and escape over the 20-foot wall. He was denied release three times by the Parole Board in the years that followed, before being released on parole in 2018.
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Daniel Abed Khalife sparks huge manhunt, 2023
Daniel Khalife, 21, fled HMP Wandsworth on September 6 in his cook's uniform, prompting extra security checks at major transport hubs amid fears he may try to leave the country. The 21-year-old former soldier disappeared around 8am on Wednesday and is understood to have used makeshift straps to tie himself to the underside of a delivery van which then drove out of the prison.
He was discharged from the Army in May 2023, and was awaiting trial after allegedly planting a fake bomb at an RAF base and gathering information that might be useful to terrorists or enemies of the UK. Khalife has denied the three charges against him.
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