Delivery driver says Wandsworth prison never checked under his van
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Security officers at the prison from which terror suspect Daniel Khalife escaped consistently failed to carry out checks that could have caught him, delivery staff have claimed.
One driver who made dozens of trips to HMP Wandsworth in south London to deliver light fittings and equipment said there were no checks of the underneath of his vehicle before leaving the jail.
Khalife escaped on Wednesday morning by strapping himself onto the bottom of a delivery lorry after leaving the prison kitchen in a cook’s uniform.
Officers, known as operational support grades, are supposed to use mirrors to check underneath any vehicle coming into or leaving the prison, as well as inside and on top of it. The checks are conducted in a secure area, known as an “airlock,” between the outer and inner gates of the prison’s perimeter.
However, the driver – who asked to remain anonymous – told the BBC that the only security procedure at the prison involved a “pat-down” search and checks inside his vehicle.
Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, has ordered an investigation report into how Khalife evaded a double set of security checks. He not only got through the “airlock” but should also have been prevented from escaping by a roll call before the food delivery truck left the kitchen where he was working.
It is believed Khalife helped to unpack the Bidfood truck at around 7am on Wednesday morning, but sources said rules required the catering manager to confirm to the central control room that all the prisoners were accounted for in a roll call in the kitchen before the lorry was allowed to leave for the airlock.
Initial findings from the internal HM Prison Service investigation suggest that Khalife made a makeshift strap from material available in the prison, potentially from the plastic cover of a mattress. Police believe he used it to tie himself to the underside of the lorry, which left the prison at 7.30am.
The vehicle should also have been monitored by CCTV from the control room as it made its way from the kitchen into a “sterile area” between an inner perimeter fence and the outer walls to the airlock.
However, it has now emerged that a major upgrade of the prison’s old CCTV system that was supposed to have been done after a similar escape by a prisoner in 2019 was only started in November 2021 and is now not expected to be completed until 2025.
The apparent security failings come against a backdrop of what inspectors have described as “serious” staff shortages and inexperience with officer absence rates of between 30 and 44 per cent. On Thursday, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said Wandsworth’s problems were so deep-seated it would be closed “in an ideal world”.
Speaking at a G20 summit in India, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, refused to say he had confidence in Katie Price, the jail’s governor. Asked twice if he had confidence in the governor, he would only say it was important to “establish the facts first” from investigations into the escape ordered by Mr Chalk.
Hunt raised concerns in April
The Telegraph can also reveal that Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, raised concerns about the “extremely worrying” state of HMP Wandsworth with its governor and Damian Hinds, the prisons minister, on behalf of a constituent earlier this year.
Mr Hunt took up the case of Mark, a prisoner who spent seven months in the jail on remand before being cleared. Mark had complained of appalling conditions at the vermin-infested Victorian jail as well as staff who tried to “do as little as possible,” and faced no consequences for under-performance on the job.
The Chancellor’s initial letter in April to the prison received no reply. A second in May also got no answer. He sent copies of correspondence to Mr Hinds and Prison Service HQ in June but still received no answers, prompting him to tell Mark that he was “disappointed and very concerned about the lack of responses”.
He finally got a reply in August. The Ministry of Justice said there had been an “administrative error,” while it was explained that Mr Hinds had not replied because Mr Hunt contacted his parliamentary rather than ministerial office.
On Friday, it also emerged that an acting deputy governor at Wandsworth prison has been suspended over an alleged failure to report information to his bosses.
Figures published on Friday showed the prison was holding 1,617 prisoners, 667 more than it was designed for, resulting in inmates being forced to share two or three to a cell. It is just 11 short of its absolute limit or operational capacity of 1,628.
A prison service spokesman said it expected all vehicles to be searched and had “no evidence to suggest this was not happening”.
