14 inmates escape in one year from a VERY open prison
FOURTEEN prisoners have escaped from a single open prison in the past year, including one who murdered a teenager and another who stabbed a woman police officer, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The violent inmates all absconded from HMP Springhill near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire – a category D jail that houses about 330 inmates – at a rate of one every four weeks since April last year.
While ten have been recaptured, critics last night condemned the ease with which dangerous criminals were able to simply walk away, despite a warning from the Chief Inspector of Prisons following an unannounced inspection in December 2017.
One of those still at large is murderer Ahmet Gomulu, 30, who absconded in November. He was jailed for 12 years in 2008 for stabbing Nassirudeen Osawe, 16, through the heart at a bus stop in Islington, North London.
The savage attack was sparked when Gomulu, who police think may be hiding out in North London or Essex, accused Nassirudeen and two of his friends of ‘staring at him’.
Another man still on the run is Jason Sufi, a 39- year- old career criminal known to police since he was 13. Sufi, from Coventry, was jailed for ten years in 2001 for a string of offences, including stabbing a female police officer and a machete attack that left the owner of a jewellery store needing 50 stitches to a head wound. He had previously escaped from Rye Hill, a category C prison in Rugby, Warwickshire. Sufi vanished from Springhill in February and is suspected of committing burglaries across six counties since his escape, including a £25,000 jewellery heist in Epsom, Surrey.
Michael Murphy, 26, and Thomas Reynolds, 30, part of a gang of conmen who preyed on pensioners across the South East and South West by posing as undercover police officers, went missing last May and are yet to be found.
Jack Murray, 24, who was given an 11-year prison sentence for violent robberies, also absconded in May 2018 and spent three months on the run.
The latest official Ministry of Justice figures show 139 inmates
Fugitive suspected of new burglary spree
escaped in 2017-18 across England and Wales, up from 53 the previous year.
Open prisons are used by criminals nearing the end of their sentences. As part of the preparation for release they are often allowed out into the community but under supposedly strict conditions.
Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North-West Leicestershire, said: ‘Open prisons seem to be very open these days but open prisons cannot be so open that prolific criminals, robbers and murderers can escape and carry on their life of crime. I think security at this prison needs to be reviewed and improvements must be made both there and across the whole prison estate so t hat t hese absconds don’t happen.’
Last night, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘We work closely with police to ensure prisoners are recaptured and those who abscond can expect to serve extra time behind bars in a closed prison.
‘Offenders are only moved to open conditions when they have been assessed as low risk.’