Was terror suspect's prison escape down to incompetence or collusion?

Daniel Abed Khalife’s escape from Wandsworth prison was either a “giant” blunder or involved “some sort of collusion”, a former governor and inspector has said.

Professor John Podmore, who previously ran HMP Belmarsh, said the terror suspect should have been held on remand at the maximum-security Category A jail rather than Wandsworth.

Speaking to Niall Paterson on the Sky News Daily podcast, he said no one awaiting trial on terror offences should be allowed to work in a kitchen at a Category B prison.

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Khalife, a 21-year-old former soldier, is believed to have broken out on Wednesday morning by strapping himself to the bottom a food delivery truck.

Prof Podmore said such escapes used to happen in the 1980s but explained any vehicles coming in and out of prisons now go through an airlock, with mirror searches carried out on top and underneath, and people going inside to make checks.

“That’s kind of bog standard, routine security and it clearly didn’t happen,” he said.

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“At best it’s a giant cock-up, at worst there’s some form of collusion.”

The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, told LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Friday his officers are “looking at” whether Khalife was assisted by prison guards or other inmates in his “clearly pre-planned” escape as part of their investigation.

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Former Wandsworth inmate David Shipley, who spent time at the prison between 2020 and 2021, said overpopulation and understaffing was a “huge contributing factor” to the issue of escape.

“Often officers don’t really know the men in their charge by face and by name. They’re not really clear who should be on what wing and in what cell,” he said, speaking on the podcast.

“When I was at Wandsworth it regularly happened that there was a prison lockdown because they had lost track of a prisoner, who would invariably turn out to be in a different cell, on another wing, or had been released and no one had bothered to record that.”

Mr Shipley described the “complete chaos” inside the prison. He also said remand prisoners were given jobs as they spent longer periods awaiting trial due to delays caused by the COVID pandemic.

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But he said it was “very strange” that an inmate considered a flight risk would be working in a kitchen job, which is considered the most desirable in Wandsworth because of access to food and the time spent out of the cell.

“Wandsworth needs to explain how this guy got into that job and then how there was a complete failure to check the van on the way out,” he said.

Prof Podmore said the “old Victorian dilapidated jail” lacked experienced staff, adding: “The problems at Wandsworth in the past and certainly the problems today with the escape are certainly a reflection of the wider malaise in the prison service and the prison service is in absolute crisis.”

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