LOST KEYS AT THE OLD BAILEY

LOST KEYS AT THE OLD BAILEY

Guards lose cell keys at Bailey

By Justin Penrose Crime Correspondent  

2/12/2007 Daily Mirror online

 

Bungling guards ( SEE MY COMMENT AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE ) lost keys to cells at the Old Bailey where some of the most notorious terrorist murder and gangster trials are held.

Panicking chiefs at the UK's most secure court called in a Prison Service search team but it was SIX HOURS before the keys were found inside the building on Friday night.

Now all 100 locks at the court are being replaced at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds amid fears the keys were copied to stage future escapes.

Cases currently being heard at the Central Criminal Court include the trial of men allegedly involved in Britain's biggest cash robbery - the £53million heist at a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

Two murder trials are proceeding and former champion jockey Kieron Fallon is appearing for alleged race fixing - which he denies.

The Ministry of Justice has launched an inquiry.

A source said last night: "It's a joke. This is supposed to be the most secure court in the land."

Last month the Ministry of Justice was hit by the scandal of hundreds of alleged sex offenders escaping prosecution in Leeds because officials failed to issue arrest warrants.

Eighty criminals have escaped jail in the last year, with 1,000 foreign prisoners walking free instead of being deported. Most are still at large.

 

OWN COMMENT : The " bungling guards " are not the Security Officers who work in the Old Bailey but the private security company / prison officers who are in charge of the cells and prisoners.