Escaped prisoner numbers ‘unknown’
The head of the prison service, Phil Wheatley, has admitted he does not know how many inmates are missing from Britain’s open prisons.
Mr Wheatley’s admission came after the BBC put in a freedom of information request to the Home Office about the issue.
The department said that 401 prison inmates had absconded in the year to April last year, but the prison service director-general said he could not verify this claim.
He said he was “embarrassed” by the figures for category D prisons but pointed out that in the “vast majority” of cases the escaped prisoner was quickly arrested.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said Britain’s prison service was in a “shambles” and had got worse since John Reid took over as home secretary in May.
“For the head of the prison service to admit that they have no idea of the number of escapees still at large and, therefore, have no idea about the risk to the public, puts the disaster in the prison service on a par with the shambles in the immigration service,” he said.
“It is becoming clear that the entire Home Office is if anything less fit for purpose than it was when John Reid took over.”
Mr Wheatley’s revelations come as an embarrassment to the Home Office, which faced a similar lack of information last year over the deportation of foreign prisoners held in Britain’s jails.
Today’s developments follow the release yesterday of photographs of two escaped murderers who absconded from Sudbury open prison in Derbyshire in October and November last year.
