A prisoner serving a life sentence who escaped from Pentonville Prison earlier today has been slammed as being "unimaginative and passé" by the jail's Governor in a scathing attack this afternoon.
Speaking on One O'clock News he told the BBC's Fiona Bruce, "What sort of message does this send out to all self-respecting ODCs? I mean I thought prisoners just simply 'going over the wall' went out with the arc, but this man's conduct has quite frankly been very sadly lacking in respect of any real kind of creative flair, and in my view was little more than downright lazy. Why couldn't he have arranged for something a bit more elaborate like some of his mates 'springing him', as I believe the term is, the way that's frequently done in TV shows like The Sweeney and so on; say perhaps when he was going to court for an appeal hearing or maybe having first faked a medical emergency of some sort. Now that's what I call a proper escape."
Prisons Minister Julian Blunt told London's Capital FM, "Of course I do take on-board what the Governor has said on this matter but I prefer to see it slightly differently. This escape just shows the value of the rehabilitation work the Coalition has done since it came to power. A few years ago prison escapes would have inevitably involved considerable levels of violence towards officers and quite possibly other prison staff too, but now what have these pre-Coalition nasty endeavours been replaced by? Prisoners doing it the good old fashioned British way with a makeshift rope, most probably made from ripped-up bed sheets or something like that, and the escapee showing the due respect and deference to his jailers; who after all are only doing their job. There's no longer any of this unpleasant hostage-taking or hails of bullets etc. It gives one quite a warm glow."
Nevertheless such a high profile escape is said to have put the Prison Service on heightened alert levels and it's understood that the sending of cakes to all inmates has been suspended until further notice.
