The family of Jane Andrews’ victim has called for the Justice Secretary to resign after the convicted murderer fled from an open prison.
The former royal aide was captured at the Premier Inn at the M20 Junction Eight services at 3am on Wednesday, after three days on the run from HMP East Sutton Park.
Rick Cressman, the brother of Andrews’ former boyfriend and victim, Tom, has condemned the prison service for moving the killer into open jail conditions less than nine years into her life sentence and has urged Jack Straw to step down.
The traumatised family member told a national newspaper: “No special efforts were made to control her or watch her and before you know – she is over the wall.
“All this would have been totally avoidable if the authorities had assessed the situation properly and realised they needed to keep someone who committed a premeditated, brutal murder in secure accommodation for more than eight and a half years.
“Jack Straw should be hanging his head in shame. It’s absolutely appalling.”
Mid Kent and Faversham MP Hugh Robertson has also expressed concern and has demanded answers from Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
The fugitive was discovered at the motorway hotel with her parents June, 79, and David, 82, and her brother Jonathan, 44, who have been questioned but not charged by police.
A national newspaper has revealed officials received a tip-off of Andrews’ whereabouts from a friend of the taxi driver who drove her parents to Maidstone from their hometown Grimsby, Lincs.
The Sun newspaper has reported cabbie Darren Auckland, 40, was asked to stop outside a graveyard at 12.30am, on Wednesday, and was left “stunned” when the mud-caked former royal dresser stepped out of the bushes.
The family asked Auckland to drive them back to Grimsby, but he refused and instead dropped them off at the hotel at 2am – just six miles from the countryside prison.
The taxi driver, who has given a statement to the police, told the newspaper: “I'm no hero. I don't take any delight in any of this. They don't deserve any grief. They are lovely people. I hope things turn out OK for them.”
The inmate, who was an aide to the Duchess of York for nine years, was jailed in 2001 for bludgeoning and stabbing her boyfriend to death after he refused to marry her.
Andrews’ would have been eligible for parole in February 2012 after her minimum sentence was reduced from 15 to 12 years.
She has now been taken to the high security Holloway prison in London and is now likely to face either criminal charges for absconding and could be given a longer prison sentence as punishment.
POSTED: 26/11/2009 10:16:54
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