Merseyside's got more prison breaks than a soap opera, bruv. Here’s the lowdown on some of the maddest escapes that had the old bill scrambling for answers.
First up, Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes, aka 'The Turk' and 'Fat Cat'. These two were behind a wave of shootings and grenade attacks across Merseyside, turning the ends into a warzone. They got sprung from a prison van bound for Liverpool Crown Court in 2011 by a crew armed with a sledgehammer and a gun 🙅. The escape was so brazen it happened during rush hour in Manchester. Downes organised it from inside HMP Manchester using a phone hidden, well, somewhere private.
Next, Sean Walmsley. This murderer faked bowel problems to get himself taken to Aintree Hospital, where his boys ambushed the prison officers with a submachine gun 🕊. He spent 18 months on the run before getting nabbed in Leeds, looking like he'd joined a hippie commune.
And then there’s Daniel Gee, the Liverpool gangster who turned his estate into a 24/7 drug market. He absconded from an open prison last year and was caught buying a butty 🥑 in Wigan. Armed police stormed in and he was back behind bars before you could say 'sandwich'.
These tales are straight outta Merseyside, where the only thing more unpredictable than the weather is whether a criminal will stick to their sentence.