Convicted kidnapper still at large after absconding from prison
Ola Abimbola has been on the run for weeks (Picture: Sussex Police)
An apparent rise in absconders from open prisons includes a violent kidnapper who was serving a 21-year sentence.
Ola Abimbola, 36, has been wanted for weeks after disappearing from HMP Ford in West Sussex.
Convicts are sent to the Category D prison, where inmates can spend most of the day away to work or study, when they’re deemed unlikely to escape.
Abimbola was convicted of kidnap, grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon.
Police have urged anyone who sees him ‘not to approach him’ and call 999 immediately.
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It comes after a senior open prison governor warned facilities which had no absconders for ‘many years’ are ‘suddenly’ seeing a rise.
Abimbola absconded from HMP Ford, a Category D facility
Mark Drury, who represents all open prison governors at the Prison Governors’ Association, told Sky News the wider public is ‘at risk’, saying a rise in numbers was heaping ‘pressure on offender management units’.
Other recent absconders include Tesfa Clarke, 47, who was serving a nine-and-a-half year sentence for a string of violent robberies.
He was still wanted as of last Wednesday after leaving HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire.
Last week police also made an appeal to trace two prisoners who absconded from the same facility at the same day.
Patrick Gavin was nearing the end of a sentence of five years and one month for taking part in a stabbing in Desborough, Northamptonshire, in 2020.
Filipe Smith, 30, who was convicted of drugs charges, was found and returned to custody.
Police did not immediately confirm whether Clarke and Gavin were still at large.
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