Eleven foreign national inmates have absconded from an open British jail since the prisoner scandal was revealed a month ago, it emerged today.
The revelation that foreign prisoners have been cutting and running from Ford open prison is the latest headache for tough talking Home Secretary John Reid.
It was admitted by the Home Office on April 26th that more than 1,000 foreign criminals - many dangerous - had been released between 1999 and March 2006 without being considered for deportation.
The Ford escapees, who had convictions for offences including drugs and fraud, all walked out of the prison in Sussex after May 1st.
Nine of them have fled in the last week and the chief executive of the Prison Service said he did not know how many had been recaptured.
Fearing more escapes the Prison Service, backed by police officers, moved the remaining 141 foreign prisoners at Ford to closed jails in an operation which began in the middle of the night.
But opposition MPs said it was "extraordinary" that foreign prisoners had been allowed to remain in open jails after the Government recently announced its intention to deport the vast majority of them.
There were also concerns over the reaction of the 267 foreign prisoners remaining in other open prisons. The Prison Service said there were no plans to move the foreign prisoners in those jails and none had absconded this month.
On May 17th Prime Minister Tony Blair said there should be a presumption of automatic deportation in the "vast bulk" of such cases.
Earlier this week Dr Reid set a deadline of 100 days to sort out the system that had failed to deport the foreign prisoners, vowing to do "whatever it takes" to make the public feel safe.
But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Given the Government's well-publicised drive to deport foreign prisoners this state of affairs could surely have been predicted."
Nick Herbert, Conservative shadow minister for police reform, said: "It seems extraordinary that prisoners awaiting deportation, or who are likely to be deported, should be held in an open prison at all when they have little incentive to remain in custody."
PA