By Eric King-
Lincolnshire police are hunting a prisoner on the run who walked out of a court building before he could be sentenced.
24-year-old Jordan Gilbert left Boston Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday afternoon despite being remanded in custody over a driving offense,
Gilbert, from Willoughby Road in Boston, has not been seen since 2.30pm today when he seized his fantastic opportunity without detection. .
Police said he “had been remanded in custody following a disqualified from driving offense and walked out of the court’s foyer”. The escape is a disgrace to all the court authorities, and probably the police too, as they should have been keeping a close eye on him. How an offender could just walk out of court without a struggle is really laughable.
Superintendent Phil Vickers said: “We anticipate that he will be looking for someone to help him and possibly provide a bed for the night.
The most famous escape of all time from a British prison occurred in 1965 when Ronnie Biggs- one of the so-called Great Train Robbers- broke out of HMP Wandsworth in south London. He scaled the prison wall using a rope ladder and escaped in a removals van.
Biggs had served just 19 months of a 30-year sentence for his part in the theft of £2.6m from the Glasgow to London mail train in 1963.
He had spent 36 years on the run in Australia and then Brazil before being rearrested when he voluntarily returned to Britain in May 2001.
He was eventually released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds after contracting pneumonia. He died in December 2013 – nine months after attending the funeral of fellow Great Train Robber, Bruce Reynolds. like to make it clear that assisting an offender is in itself an offense and we’d be looking to investigate anyone providing assistance to him.”
The biggest escape in British history was on 25th of September 1983 when 38 IRA prisoners broke out of the maximum security Maze prison in County Antrim.
The offenses these men had been convicted for ranged from murder to causing explosions – escaped after taking a number of prison guards hostage.
A prison officer was killed in the process, and another was seriously injured in the break-out in which prisoners used smuggled guns and knives to overpower staff before hijacking a food lorry which they used to drive to the main gate.
Fifteen of the men were eventually caught within hours of the escape, and the rest were tracked down by the security services.
The then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher described it as “the gravest [break out] in our present history.”
Extradition requests for three of the fugitives were dropped by the British government in 2000 as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Two other men were granted an amnesty by ministers in 2002.
Jordan Gilbert is not as bad or hardened a criminal as the awful ones who broke records for escaping jail. Strolling out of court is less shocking than directly escaping from jail, but it still reveals a very careless and unregulated system that requires serious change. Gilbert must have concluded that being in jail for drinking was too harsh when there are murderers and terrorists around. He must be having a beer somewhere with his mates, laughing and telling the story of his escape. The longer he escapes being caught, the more beers he drinks with laughter. Surely, his mates will be doing the trips to the corner shops for him, whilst Gilbert pays for the beers if he can get a family member or friend to sort him out some money. Or he may have summoned those who owe him any debts to pay up to sustain his escape.