A Nigerian man serving a 21-year prison sentence for serious criminal offences has escaped from a UK open prison, triggering an extensive police manhunt that has now entered its fourth week.
Prison Escape Details
Ola Abimbola, a 36-year-old foreign national from Nigeria, walked out of HMP Ford open prison on October 16 and has successfully evaded capture since his disappearance. The fugitive was serving a substantial sentence for multiple serious crimes including kidnapping, grievous bodily harm, and possession of an offensive weapon in public.
Sussex Police confirmed they released CCTV footage of Abimbola last month in an effort to locate the escaped prisoner. Authorities acknowledge they are still working with partner agencies to track down the Nigerian national, who remains at large nearly one month after his brazen escape.
Growing Pattern of Prison Breaches
Abimbola represents the second foreign national currently evading UK authorities. Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian sex offender, also remains missing after being mistakenly freed from HMP Wandsworth on October 29.
Another Wandsworth prisoner, William 'Billy' Smith, aged 35, was similarly wrongly released on Monday but voluntarily returned to the scandal-plagued facility on Thursday.
Systemic Security Concerns
Mark Drury of the Prison Governors' Association has sounded alarms about a sudden increase in absconders from open prisons in recent years. He explicitly warned that this trend creates increased risk to public safety.
Drury attributed the concerning development to prison overcrowding measures, stating that open prisons now contain many prisoners who would not have been considered suitable candidates two or three years ago.
The escape crisis has reached the highest levels of government, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer expressing his anger and frustration over what he described as intolerable wrongful prisoner releases. Despite the mounting criticism, Starmer defended his Justice Secretary David Lammy.
Lammy faced scrutiny during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday when he repeatedly declined to confirm whether additional asylum seekers had been wrongly released since the Hadush Kebatu case - the deported migrant who sparked protests in Epping, Essex.
The Justice Secretary later told reporters he was not equipped with all the detail about Kaddour-Cherif's release during his Commons appearance. Lammy clarified that the problematic release occurred before I introduced those checks just a few weeks ago following Kebatu's case, while noting the other prisoner release resulted from a court error rather than prison mismanagement.
