HC Deb 21 April 1993 vol 223 cc111-2W
Ms Ruddock

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners escaped from(a) prison and (b) court escort in each court region per month in 1990, 1991 and 1992 and each month in 1993 to date.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

[holding answer 19 April 1993]: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the prison service, who has been asked to arrange a reply.

Letter from Derek Lewis to Ms Joan Ruddock, dated 20 April 1993: The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many prisoners escaped from (a) prison and (b) court escort in each court region per month in 1990, 1991, 1992 and each month in 1993. The number of prisoners who escaped from prison month by month in each of 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 is as follows:

Escapes from prison
1990 1991 1992 1993
January 5 18 11 12
February 3 29 29 10
March 15 6 18 19
April 22 26 25 18
May 19 29 27
June 11 37 24
July 20 32 11
August 18 24 13
September 13 27 24
October 17 23 31
November 31 30 26
December 21 22 15
Total 195 303 254 59

I regret that the full information that you require in part (b) of your question is not readily available and could only be gathered at disproportionate cost. The information is recorded against individual prisons rather than court catchment areas and many prisons serve a number of court catchment areas. Information is not available centrally on escapes from court escorts staffed by the police.

The total number of escapes from Prison Service escorts are as follows:

Escapes from Escort
1990 1991 1992 1993
January 12 11 14 14
February 11 7 8 13
March 11 8 15 13
April 13 18 9 11
May 10 19 6
June 3 3 12
July 6 17 12
August 15 9 9
September 3 6 13
October 7 14 13
November 12 16 20
December 16 16 16
TOTAL 119 144 147 51

Within the above figures and from information available, the number of prisoners who escaped from court escorts are as follows:

Escapes from court escort
1990 1991 1992 1993
January 7 6 11 8
February 5 2 3 7
March 6 3 7 3
April 6 8 5 5
May 1 14
June 2 1 6
July 1 10 5
August 6 4 3
September 1 4 3
October 3 7 8
November 4 9 3
December 8 8 3
Total 50 76 60 23

The figures for 1993 are up to and including 16 April 1993.

The above information is derived from incidents reported to the Incident Management Support Unit, a part of the Directorate of Custody.

I hope the above information is of use to you.