The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks (33 page)

Blake was tried in secret at the Old Bailey, and charged with five separate offences. He was found guilty of them, and sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment for – each three of the terms to run consecutively. This forty-two-year sentence was the longest ever handed out by a British court and, according to the headlines in the newspapers at the time, represented a year for every agent he had betrayed. (This seems highly unlikely as it probably underestimated the damage that Blake caused, no matter what Blake may claim.)

The forcibly retired spy was sent to serve his sentence at Wormwood Scrubs, which had stood in West London since its completion in 1891. According to one of the men who helped him escape, anti-nuclear campaigner Michael Randle, Blake was held up to other prisoners as an example of how to do your “bird”: if Blake was dealing with a forty-two-year stretch with equanimity, those with much less time to go should behave.

The Home Office were genuinely concerned that Blake might try to escape: papers recently released under the Freedom of Information Act show that warders were told to listen to his conversations with visitors, and a letter from his wife discussing the colour of the carpet was regarded as a potential code. “We are wondering whether this is an attempt to pass a message,” a prison report in 1963 noted. “From our point of view clandestine communication between the Blakes might well be very damaging indeed.” MI5 were supposed to be keeping an eye as well: when one scheme came to light in May 1964, then-head of MI5 Roger Hollis noted that the source was someone with “a history of mental instability” who was “incapable of dissociating fact and fantasy”.

In 1965, there were claims that a plot was under way to land a helicopter in the prison grounds to rescue Blake, more than six years before this method of jail-break was successfully tried. The prison governor who looked into it commented, “Blake’s letters to his wife tend to continue to be forward-looking and uncomplaining and he devotes himself energetically to academic studies. The whole thing is somewhat James Bondish.” Blake did complain about some of the stories that were run in the papers about him: “Am I throughout my prison sentence to remain at the mercy of anyone who for reasons best known to himself, spreads stories about me?” he wrote to the Home Office after an article had appeared in the tabloid
The People
which stated that another prisoner had nobly foiled an attempt by Blake to escape. On this occasion, his complaint was backed up by one of the prison governors.

Although there was general revulsion at Blake’s activities – or at least, those which the government permitted to be reported in the papers – there were some who felt that the forty-two-year sentence was too harsh and savage for a man who was apparently acting patriotically, even if his patriotism was directed towards a foreign country. “I do not see why this should be a crime in itself, to go against patriotism. Should a German have hesitated more than any other nationality to assassinate Hitler?” one correspondent wrote to the Home Office, requesting Blake’s sentence be reassessed.

Those feelings were shared by some of those who served their prison time alongside Blake, including Michael Randle, Pat Pottle and Sean Bourke. Randle and Pottle were founders of the Committee of 100, a British anti-war group set up in 1960 after discussions between members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Direct Action Committee to foment civil disobedience and non-violent resistance against nuclear bombs. The Committee had been seen as a threat by the government, and after a protest at the US Air Force base in Wethersfield, Essex, six of the leaders were sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment for conspiracy and incitement under the Official Secrets Act. Bourke was serving a seven-year term for “using Her Majesty’s mails for transporting an infernal device” – sending a bomb to a detective sergeant who had accused Bourke of an unnatural relationship with a young man.

During their time inside, they had come to know Blake – Bourke edited a prison magazine to which the spy was a regular contributor – and came to feel that his sentence was unjust, and that trying to help him to escape was simply a decent human response. Blake himself, despite the attitude he was displaying to the authorities, had not given up on the idea of escaping: in his autobiography, he notes that he regarded himself as being like a POW, with a duty to escape.

Contrary to the belief of many in the immediate aftermath of the escape on 22 October 1966, the KGB played no part in the escapade. Blake claims that this was because he knew they wouldn’t risk a major international scandal if it went wrong; the others concerned stated that they didn’t want any involvement with the hated Soviet Union. They were helping George Blake, human being sentenced to rot inside a British prison, not George Blake, KGB agent. While they served their terms, Pottle and Randle offered to help Blake in any way they could, and kept in touch after their release.

Bourke himself was coming towards the end of his sentence at the end of 1965; he had behaved himself while behind bars, and was under consideration for the hostel programme. This meant he would spend the last nine months of his term working in an ordinary civilian job, and sleep in the hostel, connected to the prison. Blake approached Bourke and asked if he would help him escape. The Irishman didn’t care that Blake was both an Englishman and a Communist; Blake was his friend, and he told him he would do his best.

A good line of communication was vital between Bourke, who would no longer be able to go inside the prison, and Blake, stuck on D Hall with the rest of the lifers. Since work was being carried out on the hostel by inmates from D Hall, a trusted friend was used as a go-between. Almost immediately Bourke’s unreliability began to become obvious: he was also communicating with another prisoner, Kenneth de Courcy, and at one point the messages became mixed up. De Courcy got a letter with details of the escape attempt, but agreed to keep quiet, as long as he was kept in the loop about developments. To Blake’s eternal gratitude, de Courcy never breathed a word, even though he could have probably gained some valuable time knocked off his own sentence if he had betrayed the spy.

To prevent a repetition of the error, Bourke arranged for a walkie-talkie to be smuggled into the prison, which operated on a frequency that wouldn’t be monitored by the police. The only problem with that, as Blake found out when another prisoner came in to warn him urgently, was that it could be picked up by the ordinary radios that some of the other inmates had in their cells. “Fox Michael” and “Baker Charlie” had to be very careful about their conversations after that.

Around the same time, Bourke got back in touch with Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, and told them that he needed some financial help in order to arrange George Blake’s escape. They were happy to help. With the money, Bourke bought a secondhand car, and found a small flat near the prison. When Bourke had completed his prison term, and was released from the hostel, he returned to Ireland, apparently for good – but then returned to the UK under a false name.

The escape was set for a Saturday evening, when the majority of prisoners and guards would be away from the Hall, watching the weekly film show. Blake had taken advice from one of the experts on breaking and entering at the Hall, and chosen to leave through one of the large gothic windows which overlooked the yard. These windows were comprised of small panes of glass, divided by cast-iron frames. Every other panel swivelled open to act as an air vent, but on their own, were too small for a man to squeeze through. However with the iron strut removed, a gap eighteen inches by twelve was created, just about enough room for Blake to squeeze through. Once through there, it was a short jump to the roof of a covered passageway, from which Blake could jump to the ground. Then it was a fifteen-yard dash across to the outer wall; Bourke would then throw a rope ladder over for Blake to climb. Once out, they would drive away before the prison guards had a chance to catch up with them.

There was little time to lose: after six prisoners escaped from Wormwood Scrubs earlier in 1966, extra precautions were being taken, with thick steel netting added to the windows. They were already installed in A and B Halls, and Blake knew that once these were in place, his plan was foiled. A couple of days before the escape, the panes of glass were removed, and the iron crossbar broken then put back in place with tape. All Blake had to do was kick it.

The weather started to turn bad on the afternoon of 22 October, but although this would make conditions on the roof and the wall more treacherous, the reduced visibility would be very helpful. At 5.30 p.m., Blake answered his name on the evening roll call. At 6.15, he spoke to Bourke on the walkie-talkie and confirmed that the Irishman was set; another prisoner then kicked out the bar, and Blake slid out through the window, just as the prisoners started to return from watching the film. Blake reached the roof of the passageway, and let himself carefully down to the ground.

Hiding in the shadows, well aware that an inspection and headcount were due very soon, Blake started to worry when Bourke told him to hang on, as he had hit a snag. (It turned out that it was a courting couple who had chosen exactly the wrong place to grab some privacy; Bourke put his headlights on them until they went.) A few minutes later, he sent the ladder over. It was made of rope with size 13 knitting needles strung together to form the rungs: strong enough to take Blake’s weight, but light enough to be easily thrown. Blake scurried up the ladder to the top of the wall, unnoticed by the prison officers in their observation booths at its end. Beneath him he could see Bourke’s car, and the Irishman there with his walkie-talkie hidden incongruously inside a pot of pink carnations. Blake lowered himself until he was hanging by both hands, and then when Bourke told him to drop, having put his flowers down by the side of the wall, Blake let go, moving in mid-air to prevent himself from landing on top of his rescuer. Unfortunately that meant that he landed badly, and as he hit the ground, he broke his wrist. Bourke bundled him into the car, and headed off down the road at high speed – and hit another car!

Blake’s escape was spotted at 7 p.m., although there wasn’t initially the massive outcry that might have been expected. The deputy governor called the nearby Shepherds Bush police station to let them know that they had lost “one of their chaps” over the east wall of the jail, that it was probably Blake, and he was in prison grey uniform. However, by nine o’clock the hunt was on: ports and airfields were being watched; police teams with dogs were searching the area around the prison; the embassies for countries from the Iron Curtain were under increased surveillance.

The papers went wild with speculation, with everyone from the KGB to the IRA to the British Secret Service themselves suspected of responsibility. Reports came in that Blake had been spotted on a plane landing in Sydney, Australia; he was also ‘‘seen’’ in the South of France and Bermuda. The government, stung by the various escapes, set up an independent inquiry into prison security, headed by Lord Mountbatten of Burma. This would eventually lead to major changes within the prison system. Help was even offered by the Institute of Psychical Studies, who thought they could find him in a couple of days: “It would be of interest to our research into a process of locating individuals by a method of map divination (akin to water diviners) if we might include the case in our current programme of readings,” their letter said. “Should you feel disposed to give the method a trial please could you forward us the necessary sample (a few hairs from the man’s hairbrush or a well-worn shower cap).”

George Blake must have wished that he had insisted on his rescuers approaching the Russians for help. It very quickly became apparent that Sean Bourke had no real idea what he was doing. The day after the escape, Blake’s picture was plastered everywhere, and the “safe” house that Bourke had set up was nothing of the sort: in fact it was a single room in a house with shared facilities, where the landlady came in to clean weekly. When it was obvious that Blake needed medical attention for his wrist, Bourke suggested going to the local casualty department, not really thinking through the consequences of the country’s most wanted man turning up in an A&E department. However, Michael Randle was able to find a doctor who would help a man who was “allergic to hospitals”!

Quickly moving from the not-so-safe house, Blake went from one temporary home to another. One friend of Pottle and Randle’s was willing to host the fugitive, but after a few days pointed out that his wife was having therapy. Since she was under instructions to tell her therapist everything, she had talked about Blake staying there. Unsurprisingly, he got out speedily.

Within a few days, it wasn’t just Blake who had to be kept hidden: the police were also looking for Sean Bourke, who having used his own car as the getaway vehicle, then left it where it could easily be found (and if the police had any difficulties, incredibly, Bourke rang them himself to say where it was). Bourke was desperate for people to know what part he had played in the great escape: he even went in to a police station at one point to check that his picture was displayed. Blake, Pottle and Randle realized that they would need to get not just the KGB agent but his erstwhile helper out of the country.

Bourke had originally promised that he could get hold of passports, but now with the police on his tail, he wasn’t able to get in touch with his underworld contacts to do so – if indeed they even existed. Pottle and Randle had come up with an intriguing idea: change Blake’s skin pigmentation, using a drug called meladinin, so that he could leave disguised as an Indian or an Arab. Blake wasn’t that keen on the plan, as he wasn’t sure that once changed, his skin would revert to its natural hue; there were also potential side-effects from the painkilling medication he was taken for his broken wrist. The idea was dropped, as were discussions of smuggling Blake into the Soviet Embassy.

Eventually Pottle and Randle decided that the only way to get Blake out of the United Kingdom was to smuggle him inside a vehicle. With some money given by a woman in the anti-nuclear movement, who had inherited £1,200 and wanted to donate it to a worthy cause, they bought a Dormobile camper van, and started to make the necessary amendments, creating a compartment in the back of a small kitchen cupboard. Blake would need to remain cramped in the space for some time, and there were concerns about what would happen if he needed to urinate. After Randle approached a clinic for people with bladder problems, and they told him that they could provide a device if they were told Blake’s penis size, the traitor decided that he could hold his water as long as was necessary! In the end, he took a rubber hot-water bottle, just in case, although he quickly got rid of it when the smell became unbearable during the journey.