Licence failure revisited…
Nearly two weeks ago, Mark Ryder, from Highpoint Prison (Suffolk) in my constituency escaped — sorry, it is now called ‘licence failure’ by the Prison Service. When he last absconded in 1991, it took two years to recapture him and meanwhile he committed a murder.
Unhandcuffed, he apparently escaped from two female wardens whilst in Cambridge, allegedly with £150 in his pocket. Needless to say the family of the man he murdered in Sussex are terrified of a visit by him. This morning, I spoke to the Deputy Chief Constable of Suffolk, and he in turn spoke to the Acting Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire.
Is it really true that he absconded when he was allowed, unescorted, to go into a male lavatory in Cambridge?
I cannot get answers from anybody – I have been in constant touch with the office of the Prisons Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe MP, but no replies are forthcoming.
Licence failure could better be applied to a Home Office that would find it difficult to run a whelk — (sorry, crustacean) — stall.