Escaped UK prisoner tried to hand himself in seven times, court told | UK news | The Guardian


The Metropolitan police force has been ordered to launch an inquiry after a court heard that an escaped prisoner, who had been jailed for firearms offences, spent a month trying to hand himself in to officers but was repeatedly turned away.

Akram Uddin admitted to absconding from an open prison to see his mother on 17 June. His lawyers told his sentencing hearing on Friday that seven times he asked police to arrest him for it and seven times they refused.

“This case, more than any other I have heard or have been involved with in my last two decades of practice, perhaps illustrates the extent of the managed decay of the criminal justice system,” Uddin’s lawyer, Liam Walker of Doughty Street chambers, told Maidstone crown court on Friday.