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Special Branch jail-break fiasco

01 January 1992

The escape from Brixton prison on 7 July 1991 of two suspected IRA members, Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse McAuley, has seen the early retirement of the prison governor and the replacement of the head of the directorate of custody at the Prison Service office. Moreover, since the escape 57 of the prison's staff have been transferred out of Brixton. The two men escaped using a plan drawn by the Special Branch in Staffordshire.

The Staffordshire Special Branch recruited a Brixton prison warden, an ex-SAS officer, to act as go-between to get information from the men about their escape network. For five months the prison officer tried to get the confidence of the two men but when they asked for a gun they dropped the matter. The Staffordshire Special Branch then informed the prison governor and the Metropolitan Police about the project.

The procedure followed by the Staffordshire SB was set out in the Chief Constable's annual report for 1990 (published in 1991). It said that their SB had been "heavily involved in two major terrorist incidents at Lichfield and Milford" during the year. These incidents involved the murder of a soldier at Lichfield railway station and the attempted murder of Sir Peter Terry, the ex-governor of Gibraltar. The report goes on to state that:

The principles adopted and the way in which Special Branch organised their operation to constantly update the senior investigating officers was devised in-force and is acknowledged as being particularly successful. It is understood that the Staffordshire procedures are to be incorporated in national guidelines.

If this procedure was followed and the Metropolitan Police informed of what had taken place in February 1991 - nearly six months before the escape - it remains a mystery as to why "B" Squad of SO12 in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch which is the national intelligence collation agency on the IRA, appears to have known nothing about the escape plans.

Hansard written answer, 2.12.91; Guardian, 19.11.91; Independent, 21.11.91.