Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the names are of all prisoners who have absconded from prison and currently not been returned; and if he will specify in each such case (a) the offence each absconder originally committed and (b) the length of custodial sentence they were serving when they absconded.

Simon Hughes

I apologise for the delay in replying. The table below provides details of index offence and length of sentence of those absconders who are unlawfully at large having absconded between April 2004 and March 2014 (the most recent period that statistics are available). Information prior to April 2004 could only be collated by performing manual checks across different databases and could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.

In order to disclose the names of absconders who are unlawfully at large, it is necessary to make appropriate checks to ensure that disclosure will not jeopardise ongoing Police operations to recapture the offender, will not place any one else in danger and to ensure that any victim has been informed of both the abscond and release of the name. These checks are still on-going and I will write shortly as soon as the information has been prepared.

The number of absconds has reduced by 80% over the last 10 years.

Table1: Index offence and sentence length of absconders unlawfully at large from April 2004 to March 2014, as at 30 September 2014

Note: Table shows absconds of prisoners and excludes absconds of immigration detainees from NOMS operated establishments and those operated as Immigration Removal Centres by NOMS under contract to the Home Office.

These figures have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.