Newton linked to helicopter plot to free spy
ANDREW NEWTON was allegedly involved in a plot to free double agent George Blake from prison using a helicopter.
According to George Blake: Superspy, a 1987 biography by the barrister and politician Harford Montgomery Hyde, the former MI6 agent discussed the plan with Newton while they were both serving sentences at Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1964. But the pair fell out, resulting in Newton tipping off MI6 and the prison governor about Blake’s plan.
The book says that Thomas Hayes, the then governor of Wormwood Scrubs, recommended Blake be moved to a maximum security prison but was ignored. On October 22, 1966, Blake, who had been handed a 42-year jail term in 1961 for spying for the KGB during the Korean War, climbed to freedom over the perimeter wall of the West London prison. He was helped by three men he had befriended inside and who arranged a safe house for him, before he could be smuggled to Russia where, at the age of 95, he still lives.
The escape led to an inquiry by Lord Louis Mountbatten, whose report included details of a 1964 plot for an inmate who was a qualified pilot to escape from the prison and later return in a helicopter to whisk Blake to freedom.
‘He [Blake] and any crew in the helicopter were to wear police uniforms, and the helicopter was to be painted blue with the word ‘police’ painted in white on the side,’ the report said. Newton, who was not named in Lord Mountbatten’s report, could not be reached for comment.