Daniel Khalife guilty of escaping from prison

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Former soldier Daniel Khalife has pleaded guilty partway through his trial to escaping from prison.

The 23-year-old escaped from HMP Wandsworth in south-west London in September 2023 by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck using a sling made from kitchen trousers.

He continues to deny all the other charges against him.

Khalife escaped in the hope he would be kept in a high-security unit (HSU) at a different prison, away from “sex offenders” and “terrorists” after his recapture, he previously told his trial at Woolwich Crown Court.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told jurors she had asked Khalife if he wanted the prison escape charge to be put to him again.

When the charge was put to the former soldier, he replied: “I’m guilty.”

The court heard he planned a fake escape attempt for August 21 in the hope he would be moved to the HSU, but decided that a genuine escape was his only option after the incident was not reported to senior prison staff.

Khalife wanted to be kept in the HSU at HMP Belmarsh – a prison within a prison holding some of the country’s most dangerous criminals – because he believed he would be safer there, the court heard.

Five days before his successful escape, he attached a sling to the underside of the lorry made from kitchen trousers and carabiners.

The sling “wasn’t spotted at Wandsworth gate or any other prison”, Khalife said.

“When the tail lift raised it covered me entirely,” he continued.

“If the makeshift sling wasn’t noticed, they’re hardly going to notice me.”

While on the run, Khalife bought clothes from Marks & Spencer and a coffee from McDonald’s, and walked beside the River Thames before being caught by police three days later.

He stole a hat from a Mountain Warehouse store, and started using a bicycle he found, his trial heard on Monday.

“(The bike) was rotting away, I gave it new life,” he said.

“I accept that I left the prison and I didn’t have any permission,” he told jurors previously.

“I was never a real spy.

“I would do anything to go back to my career (in the Army).”

In a report published earlier this year, HMP Wandsworth’s Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) – made up of volunteers tasked by ministers with scrutinising conditions in custody – said an audit found a raft of security failings at the scandal-hit jail in the wake of the escape.

The IMB said the incident led to multiple reviews and action, including “previously unavailable funding” being found for security improvements and “significant investment” in a bid to stop “illicit items” being taken into the prison.

The security audit was carried out in November, while an internal review completed in December made 39 recommendations, according to the report.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is yet to publish those documents, outline their findings or confirm whether any disciplinary action against staff at the prison has been taken.

As the trial continued on Monday, prosecutor Mark Heywood KC asked Khalife if he “routinely told lies”.

“I have told lies before, yes,” the former soldier replied.

“No-one ever sat down and said ‘Daniel, are you in communication with a foreign enemy?'”

Mr Heywood said: “You were misrepresenting yourself as a soldier who played by the rules, weren’t you? … You were perfectly capable of telling lies, of stealing and of cheating.”

Asked why he did not tell any Army colleagues about his contact with Iran, Khalife said he was “focused” on contacting British intelligence services.

Asked about his attitude to rules, Khalife said: “I believe that rules are necessary and I follow them when I can.

“We’re not animals, we need rules.”

Khalife denies charges contrary to the Official Secrets Act and Terrorism Act, and is accused of perpetrating a bomb hoax.

The trial continues.