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Issue No. 90 Spring 2024
Peter Atkinson
Over the Wall - (Part two of three)
By: Peter Atkinson.
We now come to the late 1970’s that I remember well, having joined the Service as a junior governor grade. A renowned IRA bomber during the height of the Troubles was Gerard Tuite. He was best known for his escape one cold night in December 1980 from Brixton Prison. At the time of his escape, this 25-year-old was awaiting trial for 18 offences connected with a range of IRA bombings in and around London over the previous two years. He had formerly been a merchant seaman but had gravitated to the IRA and became active in bombing plots on the mainland. His escape did not seem particularly difficult. With two other category A prisoners, Jimmy Moody and Stan Thompson the three of them broke through the suspect brick work from their cell into an empty cell next door and then breached the outer
wall, which gave access into the prison yard below. Lying around were bits of scaffolding poles and planks, which helped them get over the 15-foot wall and away. Jimmy Moody, then aged 39, was a dangerous man with strong links to the London underworld, mixing with all the notorious gangsters of the day. He had previously been convicted for manslaughter, but this time was on remand for armed robbery. The third man Stan Thompson, aged 35, was described as a crook and a bungler, who ended up surrendering to the police after his spell on the loose. Jimmy Moody was no bungler but evaded capture and went on to become a hitman for the IRA in Northern Ireland. He remained at large for 12 years but was eventually shot dead in 1993 by fellow villains having paid the price for his criminal connections. Gerard Tuite was not caught for 10 years and was then interestingly convicted in the Irish Republic for his bombing activities in mainland Britain.
The Tuite escape highlighted the weak fabric of many British prisons like Brixton, that had been built in Victorian times. Gordon Fowler as the Deputy Director General undertook the official Enquiry amid much concern about old Victorian prisons holding dangerous criminals. Mike Selby was the Governor of Brixton at the time and despite the incident prompting his transfer, there was the quoted suggestion in a House of Lords debate about him being scapegoated with reference being made to his “real achievements” in a dilapidated old prison whilst he was in-charge.
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Perhaps the most violent and disturbing escape from a UK prison within the last 40 years, was the one by 38 IRA prisoners in 1983 from the Maze, often called Long Kesh. Long Kesh had been an RAF base just south of Belfast, left over from the second world war. In 1972, a prison was built on the site and in 1976, it was converted into a top security prison for paramilitaries with the construction of 8 H Blocks. From then on it was known as the Maze.
A number of escapes from prison custody in Northern Ireland preceded the 1983 escape. These included seven inmates in January 1972, from the ship HMS Maidstone, used as a prison, that was moored in Belfast docks. A bar across a porthole was cut and the men shinned down a mooring cable into the water. They swam through a gap in the barbed wire that surrounded the ship in the water, having seen a seal swim through the same gap a few days earlier. Nineteen IRA prisoners broke out from Portlaoise jail in August 1974. Three months later 33 inmates in Long Kesh escaped through a tunnel. This escape had been delayed because the old Nissen hutted camp had been badly burnt in a prison riot. Before the prison accommodation was improved, the conditions for the inmates at Long Kesh in the 1970’s were appalling. One escaper was shot dead and the rest were all caught within a few hours.
The 1983 escape occurred on a Sunday, mid-afternoon in H block 7, where six handguns and various knives had been smuggled earlier into the prison. Each of the eight H blocks had four wings with 25 cells each. This gave each block 100 cells, although some of the cells would sometimes house more than one person. At one point, there were as many as 1,700 inmates in the Maze.
The 24 prison officers manning H block 7 that day were overpowered with the use of firearms and held hostage at gun point in a staff room before they had a chance to raise an alarm. The inmates waited until a lorry carrying food entered H block 7 through the entrance to the block. Extreme violence had been used on the staff, with one officer stabbed, another hit over the head and a third shot in the head. With the officers having their hands tied and pillowcases over their heads, one inmate remained behind to ensure the staff were not able to raise the alarm whist all 38 prisoners clambered aboard the lorry and headed to the Gate. On arrival at the main entrance, ten inmates in officers’ uniforms by this stage and armed with guns, gained entry to the Gate. The staff were all taken hostage at gun point although one officer managed to press an alarm bell. On the threat of being shot, the officer had to tell the Control room that the bell had been pressed in error, but by this time fresh staff were arriving in the Gate lodge to start their shift. Seeing what was happening, one officer managed to run to the pedestrian gate but was pursued by an escaper who stabbed him where he collapsed. He later died. Meanwhile a soldier in one of the watch towers saw a lot of activity in the Gate Lodge and phoned the Control Room only to be told that that an alarm had been pressed by accident. It was still not realised that a mass escape was taking place although the situation was beginning to get out of hand with such a large number of escaping prisoners trying to control an ever-increasing group of hostages held at gun point. Some of the officers began to resist. Two officers tried to escape and were stabbed as the escapers managed to open the main gate and try to drive the lorry through. Two staff cars however blocked the exit and the 38 prisoners were compelled to run for it towards the final fence. Three were captured by staff, but 35 made it away from the Maze scattering in all directions. The planned getaway cars had not materialised. Nineteen prisoners were captured within 24 hours but most of the rest managed to hide out and avoid capture. The Governor retired and the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir James Hennessy, was appointed to conduct an Enquiry.
Overall, thirteen officers were beaten, five were stabbed and one of those died. Many suffered mental health problems as a consequence. The Maze incident, involving high risk, dangerous armed inmates, illustrates, what can sometimes be the precarious nature of working in a prison. Quasi military incidents involving guns, points to the fact that prison staff are neither trained nor equipped to get mixed-up in incidents of this nature. For all their training, officers do not spend a period on Salisbury Plains with the military learning to deal with armed conflict within HM Prison walls. Neither do Governors attend the military college at Sandhurst to become skilled in counteracting armed incidents. Expecting prison staff to cope with incidents that include that level of danger is unrealistic and it is misguided of the public to start glorifying the drama and derring-do of dangerous inmates trying to break out of His Majesty’s prisons. The Maze closed in 2000 and the H blocks were demolished in 2006.
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The only escape of its kind in British prison service history took place on a Thursday afternoon in December 1987, when a helicopter landed and took two prisoners from the exercise yard at HMP Gartree. With the promise of £250,000, a London gangster friend of the two inmates took up the challenge to spring his charge and did a dummy run with a helicopter the week before the escape. On the day in question, the accomplice, 31-year-old Andy Russell boarded a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter ostensibly more than 30 seconds, the helicopter landed on the exercise yard before Category A prisoners Sydney Draper and John Kendall climbed aboard and away, whilst other prisoners impeded the officers attempts to intervene. Poor visibility prevented the two escapers from reaching their pre-arranged rendezvous where a get-away car was waiting. A few miles from the prison the helicopter was made to land and the three criminals hi-jacked a van and made off. Further hi-jacked vehicles at the point of a gun got the three to Sheffield where they disappeared.
Sydney Thomas Draper was a 39-year-old London robber who had been commissioned to go to Glasgow to rob a £10,000 payroll from a British Rail depot at Springburn. During that 1973 robbery, an employee, James Kennedy acted with great courage and tried to prevent the crime, tragically getting shot in the process. Along with six other men, Sydney Draper received a life sentence in 1974 with a 25-year minimum term, some of which he served at Parkhurst. His helicopter escape took place 13 years after he was sentenced to life. He was captured by armed police 15 months later in a flat in Enfield and received another 4 years on top of his sentence. In 1996, Sydney Draper had his sentence reduced on appeal by five years. After release, he was suspected of living on the Costa del Sol, after it became known that his long-lost daughter Tamara Mockridge was trying to contact her father through a newspaper appeal
John Kendall, described by police as a ‘dangerous and vicious’ man, was described as a gangland boss. He lived in the East End of London at King’s Court. At the time of the escape, he was serving an 8-year sentence for burglary. He was 36 years old. He managed to remain on the loose for 10 days, but he was arrested by the ‘Flying Squad’ in Chelsea, and he too received an extra 4 years sentence. Andrew Russell, who organised the helicopter escape, was a criminal associate of Mr Kendall, having previously been involved in at least one armed robbery with him. When apprehended some 12 months after the escape, Mr Russell received a 10-year sentence which was in marked contrast to the four extra years that Mr Draper and Mr Kendall received at their trial. Andrew Russell was a prolific robber who had used a previously respectable couple in the jewellery trade to ‘fence’ and trade in high-end stolen jewellery to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. We’ll come across Mr Russell later with regard to the 1994 Whitemoor escape.
An Enquiry into the Gartree escape was carried out by Gordon Lakes who was the Prison Service Deputy Director General at the time. The escape prompted the successful construction of high wires across open spaces in secure prisons and as a consequence of the escape, Gartree was downgraded from a Category A prison to B. There were two known helicopter escape attempts in 2005 and 2009, both of which never got off the ground (sorry!). The murderer Brian Lawrence serving life at Parkhurst, tried to organise his flight (sorry) from the prison exercise yard in 2005 but prison staff noticed his outgoing letters were using some odd (coded) language, as well as the use of invisible ink that came to light as the letter was placed near heat. Mr Lawrence was in prison for having bludgeoned to death Deryck Cox and then set his house on fire. His departure from HMP would have been extremely damaging to the Service, given his dangerous behaviour. The 2009 failed helicopter escape involved nine Al-Qaeda terrorists at Full Sutton. A tip-off led to a careful series of cell searches which found a detailed map and a realistic plan that was due to unfold that very day. The inmates were subsequently dispersed to other jails.
* * *
Two years later, the most interesting aspect of the next escape was the accomplice. Not another prisoner or a gang member from the criminal fraternity, but a 38-year-old married, prison English teacher with two children. I would rather not mention her name, because it would seem that she was an unwitting, gullible lady who fell victim to a prisoners wicked manipulation.
The location was Hull prison and the year was 1989. The background to this event was that Category A prisoner, David McKenzie McAllister was serving a 19-year sentence at Hull for armed robbery, arson and firearms offences. Early in his sentence there were sufficient concerns about the 32-year-old Mr McAllister and others, that a special unit was set up to hold 10 inmates away from the main body of the jail. This unit was relaxed in nature with the intention of trying to create a positive atmosphere. Regular staff worked in the unit that must have been claustrophobic and demanding. Given human nature, the danger always was that the special unit staff formed too strong a relationship with their charges.
Mr McAllister was raised in Banff but by the age of 15 he was expelled from school. An interesting statistic is that 80% of pupils excluded from schools end up in custody. It was reported that he developed a heroin addiction and embarked on a life of violent crime and by the age of 17 he experienced the first of his many custodial sentences. He specialised in armed robberies.
Being in the relatively relaxed atmosphere of the special unit at Hull with a range of educational classes and facilities, Mr McAllister managed to form a romantic relationship with the English teacher. This reached the point where he was able to have sex with her in the Chapel on at least one occasion. As the relationship deepened, Mr McAllister persuaded the teacher to bring in some civilian clothes and he also arranged for her to meet a friend of his in a café close to Hull prison. Over a cup of coffee in the café, a Glasgow car salesman from Falkirk, Ralph Carlin handed over a gun and ammunition to the teacher to help Mr McAllister’s escape. On a normal Friday in July, the teacher arrived as usual for her work with the civilian clothing and the gun. Around lunch time with the use of her own keys, she then escorted Mr McAllister through ten separate security gates. It’s worth pausing for a moment to take in the action of a peripheral member of the special unit staff walking past prison officers and out into the street with a Category A inmate in possession of a gun. It is almost incomprehensible for anybody to believe that somebody would do that.
The teacher wasn’t finished there. Once outside the prison she took him to the railway station in her car. Whilst Mr McAllister bought a train ticket the lady then made her way to a city centre supermarket to set up a hoax bomb that had been constructed for her with bits of wire and electrical equipment. It again seems incredible that a normal law-abiding citizen would do such a thing. The attention of the police to what was regarded as a major incident ensured that the supermarket diversion allowed Mr McAllister to continue his journey uninterrupted in another part of town. To many people it is staggering how a respectable 38-year-old teacher with a family could ever countenance thinking about such a thing let alone actually doing it.
Mr McAllister was caught five days later in Morden, Surrey and at his subsequent Grimsby Crown Court hearing, he was given a three-year sentence for staging a bomb hoax and five years for escaping. The teacher was arrested in the supermarket the same day and received a five-year custodial sentence for her involvement. Ralph Carlin who supplied the gun, received a five-year sentence for handling a firearm. The Governor at the time was Phil Wheatley who went on to have a distinguished seven-year stint as the Director General of the Prison Service.
Some thirteen years later, following Mr McAllister’s eventual release, he was arrested again in Haverhill Suffolk for possession of two sawn-off shotguns. Serving yet another sentence at The Mount prison in Cambridgeshire, Mr McAllister developed cirrhosis of the liver and died quite quickly, aged 58 in 2013. In the end, he had spent well over half his life behind bars. I can’t find out who conducted the formal Enquiry into Mr McAllister’s escape from Hull, but an enquiry there must have been, given how a Category A prisoner was able to walk out of a prison with a loaded gun.
* * *
It was seven years before the Belfast Agreement in the midst of the Northern Ireland Troubles when the next escape took place involving two IRA men on remand in Brixton. In early July 1991, Pearse Gerard McAuley (sometime spelt McCauley) and Nessan Quinlivan had it away one Sunday morning. The 26-year-old Mr McAuley from Strabane along with his colleague, 26-year-old Mr Quinlivan from Limerick were sharing a cell in Brixton’s remand wing awaiting conspiracy charges for murder and planning explosions. They had been arrested the previous November at Stonehenge of all places. The background to the charges against the two men was that they entered the home of the Whitbread brewing Chairman Sir Charles Tidbury, with the intention of murdering him. Sir Charles was an ex-military man and a Conservative Party donor as well as an active party supporter. What got him on an IRA hit-list was his position as Chairman of the William and Mary Tercentenary Trust that was organising an event to celebrate 300 years from the 1688 Glorious Revolution. It is a bit obscure but to make sense of it one has to think of the link between William of Orange, the battle of the Boyne and the loyalist protestant Orange Order in Northern Ireland.
Mr McAuley and Mr Quinlivan were granted permission to attend the 09.15 Sunday Mass in the prison chapel. They were escorted by three officers and a dog handler. There were 71 other prisoners in the chapel and the Service went without a hitch. On the way back to their cell, a gun was produced and one of the officers was taken hostage. It was later discovered that the gun had been secreted in the sole of some trainers that had been sent to one of the men from the Irish Republic. The keys from one of the officers was snatched and with a number of shots fired as a deterrent to any pursuit, the men made it back into the wing and out again through a far door into a yard, with the perimeter wall beyond. It was a miracle that one of the pursuing staff was not shot in that a bullet passed through one officers clothing without making contact with the flesh. The two men mounted a wheelbarrow on top of one of the dog kennels and managed to climb over the wall. They dropped down into the staff married quarter area behind the prison and took one of the staff’s cars. The officer who was about to use his car was shot in the leg. Another car was hijacked before they evaded capture, eventually making it back to the Irish Republic.
Some of the concern about the escape centred around Category A prisoners attending chapel services with large numbers of other prisoners. There were uncomfortable echoes of the Strangeways riot that had begun in the Manchester Strangeways chapel not 15 months previously. The other concern was the ease with which a gun had been posted into the prison. The third concern was the number of staff on Sunday duty. With over a thousand inmates which was 230 prisoners more than the official CNA, there were only 140 staff on duty. At an ensuing House of Lords debate, a serious question was asked as to whether staff should be armed.
Four years after the escape, Mr McAuley went on to commit serious offences in the Republic by killing a Garda officer during a robbery. For this he served a further term of imprisonment but because of the Good Friday Agreement, he was never extradited to England to face charges related to his escape. Likewise, Mr Quinlivan went on to serve a term of 4 years imprisonment for owning an AK47 and on his release from Portlaoise prison, he too avoided extradition to the mainland as well. Judge Stephen Tumin as the Prison Service Chief Inspector conducted the official Enquiry, but most of his Report was withheld for security reasons. The experienced and well regarded Governor Reg Withers was very close to retirement and decided to leave the Service, being replaced by Dr Andrew Coyle.
THE FINAL PART WILL APPEAR IN THE AUTUMN 2024 NEWSLETTER, ISSUE No 91
