We've lost one

David Shipley has an insider's view of Daniel Khalife's little jaunt beyond the prison walls. Worth reading, although so far it's outside my direct experience. 


If you’ve been in Wandsworth, a prisoner escaping won’t surprise you

A former soldier charged with terrorism and espionage escapes from prison by strapping himself under a delivery lorry and being driven to freedom. It might sound shocking, far-fetched or like something from an action film. However, having been imprisoned at HMP Wandsworth in 2020 I’m not shocked at all.

The most fundamental job of a prison is to secure its inmates, but Wandsworth struggles to do that. In my time there the prison would often go into ‘lockdown’ with all movement halted because a prisoner had gone missing. Invariably they would be found in the wrong cell or even in another wing. How can this happen?

It’s important to understand Wandsworth’s unusual inmate mix. The prison serves as an extradition hub for the south of England. Of the ~1600 men imprisoned there, about half are foreign nationals awaiting or fighting extradition. Many of those men speak little or no English. The rest of the prison population is a mix of remand prisoners like Daniel Khalife, men serving short sentences and those who received longer sentences and are awaiting transfer to another prison. The prison is constantly full and receives more inmates every day from the courts. Even compared to the rest of our prison system, Wandsworth’s population is highly transient.