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The fact that the country’s most dangerous criminals are imprisoned in high-security prisons allows British citizens to sleep soundly at night.
Despite the fact that true Shawshank Redemption stories are extremely rare, they have occurred on our soil.
Only last week, a manhunt was launched for Darren Pilkington, a notorious double killer who escaped from an open prison.
The 39-year-old was on the run from HMP Kirkham in Lancashire until he was apprehended at the weekend in Horwich, Bolton.
Pilkington was imprisoned in 2006 for the murder of his then-girlfriend Carly Fairhurst, and he was also imprisoned five years prior for the murder of Paul Akister outside a pub.
Other inmates who have escaped British prisons are profiled below, including those who hid in gyms, forged makeshift ropes, and even drove through gates in their quest for freedom.
HMP Wandsworth, 1965
Ronnie attended the funeral of Great Train Robbery mastermind Bruce Reynolds in 2013 and remained defiant until the very end.
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Ronnie Biggs, a London-born criminal, was sentenced to life in prison in 1963 for his role in the infamous Great Train Robbery.
After robbing a Royal Mail train on August 8, 1963, Biggs and his 14 accomplices made off with £2.6 million.
After scaling the walls of HMP Wandsworth in south London with a rope and ladder, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but only served 15 months of it.
After spending £40,000 on plastic surgery to disguise his appearance, the criminal drove away in a removals van and went on the run in Australia and Brazil for 36 years.
In 2001, at the age of 72, he flew back to the UK and was sentenced to the remainder of his sentence in prison.
He died in 2013 at the age of 84, four years after being granted compassionate release from prison.
HMP Wormwood Scrubs, 1966
He died aged 98
(Image: Getty Images)
A British traitor escaped from HMP Wormwood Scrubs in west London less than a year after Biggs’ escape.
In 1961, George Blake was sentenced to 42 years in prison for leaking M16 secrets to the Soviet Union, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of Western spies.
Blake climbed the prison walls and later crossed into East Berlin, where he was picked up by his Soviet spymasters, shortly after England won the 1966 World Cup.
Before dying in December 2020 at the age of 98, he started a new life in Moscow.
“The bitter news has come – the legendary George Blake is gone,” said Sergey Ivanov, a spokesman for the SVR foreign intelligence agency, which was formerly the KGB. His heart stopped as he grew old.”
HMP Maze, 1983
After forcing their way into Maze prison, IRA members escaped.
(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The 40th anniversary of the UK’s largest prison breakout, in which one officer was killed, is approaching.
The heinous escape took place in September 1983 at HMP Maze in County Down, which had closed by the turn of the century.
After a prison meal lorry was hijacked, 38 IRA lags made their getaway.
Four prison officers were stabbed during the commotion, and six others were shot after being overpowered. Officer James Ferris was stabbed multiple times before succumbing to a heart attack that claimed his life.
The majority of the Republicans were eventually apprehended, and 15 were recaptured within hours.
Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, referred to it as the “gravest [prison escape] in modern history.”
HMP Brixton, 1991
In 1991, Pearse McCauley and another suspect, Nessan Quinlivan, escaped from Brixton prison.
(Image: Press Association)
Last year, IRA members Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse McAuley shot their way out of HMP Brixton and got away with it for the 30th time.
After being accused of plotting to assassinate Sir Charles Tidbury, the two were awaiting trial.
McAuley threatened guards with a gun from his shoe, and they made their daring escape.
Before the dangerous duo could flee across the perimeter wall, he fired several shots.
During the terrifying ordeal, one officer was shot in the leg before the fugitives stole his car.
They then traveled to Ireland, where the Crown Prosecution Service concluded in 2009 that the attempted murder and conspiracy to cause explosions charges would have no chance of being prosecuted.
McAuley had already been found guilty of manslaughter for his part in the murder of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe.
McAuley also got himself into trouble in December 2014 when he stabbed his estranged wife 13 times.
McAuley was sentenced to 12 years in prison, with four years suspended, after she miraculously survived the horrifying ordeal.
HMP Pentonville, 2012
In 2018, six years after escaping, John Massey was allowed to walk free.
(Image: MET POLICE)
John Massey, one of the UK’s longest-serving lags, escaped HMP Pentonville in north London ten years ago in June.
In 1975, the 64-year-old was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting bouncer Charlie Higgins in a Hackney pub.
But in 2012, after hiding in a gym, he used a makeshift rope to scale a prison roof and scale the wall before being apprehended 48 hours later in Kent.
“I am sitting here not getting anywhere,” he fumed from Rochester Prison in Kent after being denied parole in 2016.
“Apparently I am more dangerous now than I was 20 years ago,” Massey added, who has spent over four decades inside. “It’s a twisted logic,” says the narrator.
However, he was released two years later.
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