Prisoner 'on the run' identified in handcuff bolt cutter video after hospital escape

A man has been jailed for 10 months after police were anonymously sent a WhatsApp video showing him using bolt cutters to try and free an “on the run” Bradford burglar from his handcuffs.

The criminal had been arrested by police last October, but while he was being walked into the Bradford Royal Infirmary for treatment to an injury he suddenly broke free from his escort and made off on foot.

Prosecutor Victoria Barker told Bradford Crown Court on Wednesday how the officers were unable to find their prisoner, but a colleague later received the video clip which showed Hamas Khan using the tool to cut off the handcuffs. Khan’s first name was heard in the footage and he was subsequently identified as being involved in the incident.

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The escapee was not arrested again until about seven weeks later and he was eventually jailed for offences of burglary, theft and escaping from lawful custody. Despite extensive police efforts to find Khan the 25-year-old avoided arrest until March this year when police found him in a top floor flat.

During his arrest Khan had clambered over a balcony 50 feet up, but he was finally detained after he was able to climb down to the balcony below. Khan, of no fixed abode, had been jailed for four years back in 2019 for conspiracy to burgle and he was still on licence when he committed the offence last October of assisting an offender.

He pleaded guilty to the charge at an earlier crown court hearing and today Judge Ahmed Nadim said his actions had been “an attack on the criminal justice system".

The judge was told Khan was still an immature young man who was easily influenced by others, but he said Khan must have known that the man he was assisting had been apprehended by the police. Judge Nadim said: "You must have known from your past experience of the criminal justice system that that which you were doing was a serious wrong and constituted an attack upon the operation of the criminal justice system.

"You were not found for a substantial period of time and when the police did locate you you behaved in a way that was not designed to cooperate with a surrender to custody."

He concluded that Khan had actively been avoiding the attention of the authorities. Judge Nadim told Khan that he would have been jailed for 15 months if he had been convicted following a trial, but his guilty plea meant that term could be reduced to 10 months.