Inmate walks out of prison for a night of passion with wife in hotel
He was caught after suspicious staff checked his Facebook posts
AN INMATE walked out of an open prison to enjoy an overnight stay at a luxury hotel with his wife – and even tricked management into giving them a room for free.
Douglas Ward, 26, dodged at least four roll calls at North Sea Camp Prison in Lincolnshire while he was checked in to a Grade II-listed boutique hotel with wife Eileen, 27, over the August bank holiday weekend.
A court heard the inmate – who was serving more than five years for firearms offences – was rumbled when suspicious hotel staff discovered Ward’s Facebook page listed his status as ‘serving prisoner’.
By then Ward had uploaded photos of the couple drinking the contents of the mini-bar in their executive room at 15-bedroom Cley Hall Hotel, a Georgian property 20 miles away in the centre of Spalding, Lincolnshire. A judge heard the pictures prompted a friend to ask Ward if he had been released, only for the prisoner to brag that he was just ‘out for the day’.
The court heard Ward’s wife checked in using the name Ellen Thompson and was described by the hotel manager as having an ‘orange complexion as if she used fake tan and what he took to be very large breast implants’. Prosecutor Michael Cranmer-Brown said the couple persuaded management at the hotel to waive the £110 room rate after claiming Ward had to go to hospital when an antique chair collapsed as he sat at a desk, injuring his ankle.
Mrs Ward then negotiated a second free night after claiming her husband could not drive them back to their home town of Darlington, County Durham, because his ankle was too swollen. But by then, staff had become suspicious after noticing Ward wearing ‘a simple crepe bandage on his leg, not of the type that would be given out by a hospital’.
Mr Cranmer-Brown added: ‘ The manager was a bit suspicious. He discovered some photographs had been uploaded on Facebook... and noticed that the defendant’s Facebook profile showed he was living at HMP Strangeways.
‘At North Sea Camp there are rolls calls at 5am, 5pm, 8pm and mid- night. He was able to evade these checks. It is not clear whether he returned or he just wasn’t checked.’
Lincoln Crown Court heard the hotel staff tried to charge Ward for the room using the credit card details he had supplied when he made the booking, but the transaction did not go through. The prison in the village of Freiston was alerted and arrangements were made for Ward to be transferred to a more secure jail. He was placed in a holding room at North Sea Camp to await transport – but smashed his way out and escaped, before being recaptured 300m away.
Ward, who admitted three charges of escaping from prison and one of damaging a cell door, was sent to Strangeways after being jailed for 64 months at Bolton Crown Court in October 2011. He had been found in possession of firearms during a pre- arranged fight between travelling families in Middleton, Greater Manchester.
On Monday, Ward, whose Facebook page has since been deleted, was handed a concurrent 15-month sentence alongside a £900 criminal courts charge and a £100 victim
‘They emptied the mini-bar’
surcharge. It is understood he has been returned to a closed prison.
Recorder Paul Mann said his actions ‘had the potential to undermine prison discipline at that prison’ and undermined public confidence in the prison service.
John Wilford, defending, said Ward, who has a five-year-old child, had been a ‘model prisoner’ but became frustrated when his planned release date was put back.
Mrs Ward – who was convicted last year of conning a dementia sufferer out of £2,500 in Chester-le-Street, County Durham – was not charged over the hotel incident.