Emily Atkinson
Live reporter

As we've been reporting, it is understood Daniel Abed Khalife escaped via the kitchens - dressed in a chef's uniform - before strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery van.

But how might a terror suspect gain access to the kitchen in the first place? I asked former HMP Wandsworth inmate David Shipley.

“Working in the kitchen is one of the best jobs in the prison," he says.

There are two roles. Orderlies take and distribute food to their wings, escorted by a prison officer. Meanwhile, kitchen staff receive food deliveries from suppliers, giving them direct access to both the people coming in and out, as well as an exit.

Shipley says Khalife was likely to be working in the kitchen.

But the role is reserved for "model prisoners" and not for "anyone considered a high flight risk", Shipley says. "Something there has gone deeply awry."

And how did Khalife escape strapped to the underside of the van?

“Every lorry going in and out should an underside check using a mirror. There’s no reason they would have stopped doing that," Shipley says.

Image source, .

How did Khalife eascape? It is believed he escaped via a prison kitchen by strapping himself to the underside of a delivery van. It is not known how he managed to get the equipment to attach himself to the vehicle.

Why was he in the kitchen? Khalife is thought to have had a role in the kitchen of HMP Wandsworth.

What was he last seen wearing? Khalife is thought to have been wearing a prison-issue chef's uniform of a white T-shirt, red and white chequered trousers and brown steel toe cap boots.

How long was it before anyone realised he was missing? There was a delay of approximately an hour between prison officials noticing Khalife was missing since and contacting the police, The Times, external has reported..

What happened then? The prison was put on lockdown and a major police hunt was launched. Fears that Khalife would try and flee the country meant an alert was released to UK ports and airports, leading to delays for passengers as additional checks were carried out.

And what's happening now? The search for Khalife continues.

Image source, .

Here's an more upbeat account from a former prisoner who spoke to BBC 5 Live about his experience of rehabilitation.

David Breakspear, is a former prisoner and has been a part of the criminal justice system for nearly 40 years as a campaigner.

He says “We’re not going to find an overnight solution but we need to focus on what actually does work”

“What is reducing reoffenders, what is helping people in prison turn their lives around and lets focus on that”

“Stories like this do no favours at all to people who are trying to reform the criminal justice system because they became the face of everything that’s wrong and not what’s right, because things do work”

Emily Atkinson
Live reporter

A former inmate from HMP Wandsworth says he "wasn’t surprised" that Daniel Abed Khalife was able to flee the prison, saying it was beset by "chronic understaffing" and a workforce that "just don’t know all the men".

David Shipley, a film producer who was imprisoned between February 2020 and December 2020 for fraud, told the BBC the prison "didn’t function" and was so poorly staffed it couldn’t even operate basic hygiene regimes.

On hearing Khalife had escaped, Shipley said he was "50/50 as to whether he escaped or [officers] just let him out by mistake".

Officers would commonly enforce lockdowns as prisoners would go missing, only to be found later in another cell, Shipley says. “It happened all time time… They would just lose people.”

According to the MoJ, external, there were 54 prisoners in England and Wales released in error in the latest year - an increase of 17%.

Shipley goes on to say Khalife's escape is the result of broader problems both at Wandsworth and in the prison system generally.

“It's the understaffing, the low staff morale, the high attrition rate of senior staff," he says.

Image source, Pool

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes investigations into the security breach at Wandsworth prison will reveal "a pattern of behaviour that isn't just confined to Wandsworth".

Speaking to the media a short while ago, he said a rotation of ministers in the Ministry of Justice hasn't helped matters either.

"It certainly hasn't helped that in the last 10 years we've had 10 justice secretaries," he said.

The "chopping and changing" had produced "instability and inconsistency", he added.

Prison conditions for inmates and staff have been in the spotlight this morning as the hunt for escapee Daniel Khalife, an ex-soldier accused of terror offences, continues. Here are five things we've learned so far today:

• Khalife, 21, is accused of trying to gather information for Iran among other terrorism charges, it has emerged

• Justice Secretary Alex Chalk gave a statement to the House of Commons about Khalife's escape and promised investigations into the security breach would leave "no stone unturned"
• Chalk has ordered an investigation into why Khalife was held in a category B prison - rather than a high security category A jail - and an additional independent investigation into what happened
• Two former prison officers and an ex-Wandsworth inmate have spoken about failures they observed in the prison system, including overcrowding and under-staffing
• A former Met Police investigator said it was very likely Khalife had already fled the country

Image source, PA Media

Additional security checks are taking place at ports and airports across the country - meaning delays in some places for the second day.

At Dover, the port has advised passengers to allow more time for border control, and warned that traffic around the port would face delays, external.

The Brock Zero traffic management system is in place, which means the M20 in Kent is closed coastbound between junctions 8 and 9.

Pictures show a long line of stationary lorries heading towards the port on the A20.

Image source, PA Media

Has there been a 20% increase in prison officers?published at 12:44 British Summer Time 7 September 2023

12:44 BST 7 September 2023

Talking about the measures that the government was taking to improve prisons, Science Minister Michelle Donelan told Today on BBC Radio 4: “We’ve actually increased by 20% in the last year the number of front-line prison officers.”

That is not correct. The Ministry of Justice has told us that she was referring to the number of people recruited to the prison service, which has gone up by 20.6%.

The number of, external full-time equivalent front-line prison officers actually went up by 3.2% in the year to the end of June.

The total number of these officers is still almost 10% below the number at the end of March 2010.

It's more than 24 hours since Daniel Khalife escaped from Wandsworth prison and a former Met Police detective chief investigator says there's "every liklihood he has now left the UK".

Perry Benton says he believes Khalife "would have carefully planned this" and there are a number of ways he could have fled the country, including by trains and via ports.

In the search for Khalife, Benton says CCTV will be "the biggest clue" and the investigation will focus on the delivery driver's route - "literally trawling every area where that van went, to identify when he managed to get off the van and where he went from there".

He said it would also be crucial for investigators to speak to the delivery driver, as well as looking at whether Khalife has access to a mobile phone and how he might be funding his escape.

Benton says officers will be speaking to family, friends, prison inmates and associates in the armed forces, and assessing letters and phone calls received while he was in prison.

Daniel Sandford & Daniel De Simone
BBC News

The man who escaped from Wandsworth Prison had been accused of trying to gather information for Iran.

Daniel Abed Khalife is charged with collecting information which might prove useful to an enemy.

It is understood the “enemy” referred to in the charge is Iran.

Khalife was due to stand trial in November.

"Security posts were manned" at the time Khalife is believed to have escaped from Wandsworth prison, Chalk says, "so we need to know what went wrong".

He is responding to a question from Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP whose constituency the prison is located in, who asks how the escape was able to happen.

Khan says her constituents are "alarmed" that someone was able to escape from "what is supposed to be an extremely secure prison".

Chalk responds that the police believe Khalife is believed to be "low-risk" to the public.

Allin-Khan highlights staffing shortages at the prison, such as one night shift in December when she says only seven staff members were on shift for 1,500 inmates.

"Prisons are overstretched and falling apart," she says.

In response, Chalk says 700 prison staff have been recruited since the end of June and that the resignation rate has a long way to go, but adds: "I don't suggest for a second the work is completed... but we are going in the right direction."

Image source, House of Commons

Labour MP Barry Sheerman asks the justice secretary about overcrowding in prisons and the impact it has on the people who work in them.

Chalk believes "to his boot straps" that the job carried out by frontline prison staff requires huge courage and integrity.

Fleur Anderson, also from Labour, and the MP for Putney in the borough of Wandsworth, says she welcomes the minister's inquiries but hopes he will look into the low levels of staff in Wandsworth prison in particular.

She says she visited the prison in June and "as I was arriving, six members of staff were being taken to A&E because they'd just been assaulted".

"She's right about staffing and we need to drive it up," Chalk says.

He says the roll-out of body-warn video cameras for prison staff is making "an enormous difference" to help bring down violence - whether it is to prevent it or capture evidence when it does take place.

Labour's Dame Diana Johnson tells Chalk she was surprised to hear that Khalife was allowed to work in the prison's kitchens, a role that she understood to be for trusted inmates.

Chalk says that is "precisely what I want to have answers on".

Sarah Olney from the Liberal Democrats is next, and asks about how to approach Khalife's threat to the public. Police have said the 21-year-old is not thought to be a risk to the public.

"We all have a duty to ensure people aren't alarmed," Chalk says.

"(Khalife) shouldn't be approached, but he is not a risk to the wider public," he says.

Image source, House of Commons

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has clarified that Khalife was never held in Belmarsh - a category A prison - after Labour's Shabana Mahmood questioned why he had been moved from here to Wandsworth.

Chalk says Khalife was never held at the high-security prison in south-east London.

He also says that enquiries into staff at Wandsworth prison and their training are under way, and outside "expertise" is assisting with the current investigation.

Chalk says he wants all the preliminary answers in the probe into what happened on "my desk by the end of the week" and he will then make a decision on what more information can be made public.

He says that the investigation must be carried out "calmly" so that when Khalife is "caught, as he will be, he will brought to justice and justice will be done".

SNP MP Richard Thomson is next to ask questions. He raises concerns about Khalife being held in a category B prison, despite facing terror charges.

Chalk agrees with his concern, saying "that is precisely what I want to have some information about".

As a reminder, the highest-security prison is category A.

We're now hearing from the chair of the justice committee, the Conservative MP Sir Bob Neill.

Neill says that given that there has been "a significant improvement in gate security", it makes it "all the more alarming" that an escape like Daniel Khalife's was able to take place.

Chalk says that "the positions were staffed, the security posts were occupied", but the question is whether protocols were followed.

Image source, House of Commons

Image source, House of Commons

Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood responds to Chalk's statement, saying it lacked a number of details she says he should be free to share.

She says the circumstances of the escape do not prejudice Khalife's right to a fair trial, and goes on to list several specifics that remain a mystery.

"It beggars belief that a man held on suspected terror charges could escape prison by clinging to bottom of delivery van," Mahmood says.

"How on earth was this allowed to happen?"

Chalk says that in light of these events he has ordered two urgent reviews - into the categorisation of all prisoners at Wandsworth and into those across the prison estate charged with terror offences.

He says he has ordered an investigation into the categorisation of Khalife, as well as an additional independent investigation into what happened.

Discussing prison security, Chalk says escapes from prisons "are extremely rare" and investment has gone into the sector to enhance intelligence and anti-cooperation initiatives.

He says the numbers have declined substantially in the last 10 to 15 years.

Ending his statement, the justice secretary says "Daniel Khalife will be found, and he will be made to face justice."

"No stone must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of what happened," the justice secretary says, describing it as a "grave security breach".

Chalk says he wants to know who was on duty on Wednesday morning "ranging from the kitchen to the prison gate" and what protocols were in place.

Chalk says a delivery van exited the kitchen at around 7:30am yesterday.

Shortly after, it was discovered Khalife was missing and the prison went into lockdown.

The van was stopped and searched, where strapping was found underneath, leading to the assumption Khalife strapped himself to the underside to escape.

Chalk says Khalife will be "caught in due course" and there is no threat to the public.