Revenge fear over escaped rapist
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Your support makes all the difference.Staff at a top-security hospital were last night said to be living in fear of a rapist who escaped after vowing to "settle old scores" with his former nurses.
Paul Marshall, 25, escaped from Rampton hospital in Nottingham two days before Christmas after being transferred from the secure unit at Broadmoor to be closer to his relatives.
He has not been since 23 December when he used bootlaces to help fashion a makeshift ladder and scale a 12ft fence at Rampton, but about 30 staff at Broadmoor, in Berkshire, have been issued with his photograph and put on their guard.
Staff have been warned that Marshall - who was detained for life after raping an Essex woman then battering her with a hammer - has vowed to get even with some of the nurses who used to look after him.
One female nurse who was too frightened to be named said: "Marshall is a maniac who made a lot of enemies with the staff at Broadmoor. He was anything but a model patient and told several nurses on the wards where he was held that he would `get them' oneday."
She added: "Now that he is on the loose, there are a good many of us feeling very vulnerable. The hospital authorities have issued at least 30 of the staff with personal pictures of Marshall and given a description of what he now looks like.
"There are a lot of families living on the Broadmoor estate and many of them have children,"
Apart from about 200 families living on the hospital estate, Broadmoor also has a school on site and its children are due to return from their Christmas break tomorrow.
Paul Robertson, a Broadmoor spokesman, said selected staff had been issued with up-to-date photos of Marshall and all staff were on the alert. "We accept that it is possible he will try to contact members of staff from the wards where he was treated in Broadmoor," he said.
Frank Mone, Broadmoor branch chairman of the Prison Officers Association which represents many of the 600 staff, said the POA was "very concerned. The fact that some staff have been specially targeted, highlights the vulnerability of nurses," he said.
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