THE DAY I TOOK AN ESCAPED PRISONER
BACK TO JAIL
When people learn I spent around forty years working as a
journalist in Fleet Street, I’m often asked: What were the
highlights?
I sometimes mention that I helped cover the Jeremy Thorpe
trial at the Old Bailey for the Evening Standard. I often explain how
I broke the news in a Sun newspaper exclusive in April 1989 that
Bill Wyman, the Rolling Stones guitarist, aged 52, was to marry
18-year-old Mandy Smith.
I sometimes relate how, while working for the Sunday People, I
did a lot of work for their investigations department. I was once
required to buy 200 blank MOT forms in order to expose a trade in
fake certificates. And, in another investigation, I found evidence
about Rod Stewart’s secret love child, Sarah Streeter, by tracking
down a retired adoption agent in Sussex through a library ticket.
But the experience that sticks in my mind the most was the
day, while working for the People newsdesk, I took an escaped
prisoner back to jail.
It all began one day in the 1990s when I spotted a story in an
East London local newspaper about a well-known East End
character, called Mickey Ishmael.
Anyone who remembers the 1970s will remember the campaign
to free a notorious robber called George Davis from prison. The
campaigners came up with the famous slogan that appeared
on walls and railway bridges, ‘George Davis Is Innocent OK.”
Ishmael, a long-time associate of Davis, had, according to the
local newspaper report, been allowed out of high-security Long
Lartin Prison in Evesham, Worcestershire in order to have a minor
hospital operation. The surgery on his nose had proved successful.
What had been less successful had been efforts on the part of the
prison authorities to get him back to Long Lartin afterwards.
I called the Home Office Prison Department and made various
other checks before writing a news story about his brief life on the
run for the People.
The day after publication, the newspaper office received a call
from a woman purporting to be Mickey’s girlfriend. She was eager
to speak to me, so I called the phone number she had left.
She revealed she had begged Mickey to go back and finish his
sentence, so that, when he came out, they could begin a fresh life
together. And she wanted me to take him back.
So, knowing this would make a story for the paper, the
following Saturday, photographer David Graves and I set off to see
the wanted man. We arrived at the scheduled meeting place, a
busy pub near Islington market in East London, at two o’clock. We
easily located our returning prisoner and his glamorous, blonde
girlfriend, expecting the pair to be ready to leave with us right
away on our 102-mile journey through the Chilterns and across the
Cotswolds. The only problem was that the wanted man was in no
hurry to leave.
Everyone in the pub seemed to be either a close friend or a
close relative, and each one needed to spend a good while saying
their goodbyes.
I think we finally started out on the two-and-a-half-hour
journey at about four o’clock. And that wasn’t the only delay. The
old charmer, a renowned ladies’ man, insisted that David should stop
his BMW along the A40 road in Acton so that he could buy his
sweetheart, sitting on the back seat next to him, a bouquet of
flowers.
Hours later, we had nearly reached the Category A men's
prison in the village of South Littleton, just outside Evesham,
when, from my place in the front passenger seat, I glanced in the
side mirror. To my horror, a police car was right behind us.
We had just passed signs warning of an accident blackspot.
We had been travelling close to the speed limit – possibly
exceeding it. My heart was in my mouth for a few moments. If we
were stopped by traffic police, how would we explain having an
escaped prisoner in the back of the car?
Luckily, just minutes later, we turned into the country lane that
led to the prison, and the police car continued its journey along the
main road.
Of course, once we arrived at the prison, we had to give the
infatuated couple a few minutes together, saying their farewells,
before we watched the dejected man walk slowly off towards the
prison entrance. Certainly, one of the strangest events I have ever
been involved in.
*** Tony’s latest book, VOICES FROM THE DEAD (published by
The Book Folks) is available on Amazon:
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G2MB79M9/
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2MB79M9/
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