A JEALOUS grandfather who was jailed for life for murdering a friend of his ex-mistress and hiring a hitman to kill two other men has been foiled in a prison break out by prison officers.
Retired teacher Brian Lawrence, 68, formerly of Hermitage, Berkshire, is serving a life sentence at Category B IW Prison Parkhurst for battering a Korean War veteran Deryk Cox, 69, to death. After battering Deryk with a hammer he set fire to his house in Caversham, Berkshire, in 2003.
Lawrence, who has served seven years of a 21-year life sentence, was caught by vigilant prison officers who foiled the attempted break out, involving a helicopter, by breaking a series of coded letters and maps written in lemon juice.
The escape was due to have taken place hours after the 2010 Isle of Wight pop festival had closed.
Lawrence planned the daring escape attempt realising there would have been lots of helicopters in the air. This would have been the ideal cover for the convicted murderer to carry out his escape plans.
A Gazette source revealed that Lawrence had spent many months planning the escape and had also sold a quarry for over £500,000 to fund the purchase of the helicopter breakout.
The funds were offered to a gang working on the outside to spring Lawrence from the jail.
Prison staff rumbled the sophisticated escape plan after a number of lemons were found in Lawrence’s cell during a routine search. Prison officers alerted the governor to the find and Lawrence’s mail was monitored more closely. Security staff within the prison noticed a certain code within the communications that the convicted granddad was sending out and spent many weeks trying to decipher the code.
Officers broke the coded messages to reveal that Lawrence was sending out lemon juice drawn maps and they could be read by candlelight. They gave details of the layout of the prison and were he was planning to be at the time of the pick up.
Lawrence used this lemon juice and coded letter method when trying to arrange for a hit man to carry out a contact killing on his former lover Christine Watson’s husband and another friend’s partner.
It was for these crimes that Lawrence stood trial and was convicted at Reading Crown Court. The insanely jealous granddad of four was sentence to life imprisonment.
The deviously plot was etched out down to the smallest detail as to how Lawrence wanted the gang to spring him from the jail.
A helicopter was to land within the prison grounds in an area that was unprotected by anti-chopper nets and scoop him up from the prison. It is unclear if he planned to leave the Island by helicopter. A major prison probe was launched and Police worked closely with prison staff to halt the escape attempt.
Prison governor Barry Greenberry praised his staff for their vigilance in foiling the attempt. He said “I am delighted at the way our security team and Hampshire Constabulary have foiled a possible escape attempt. I am very proud of the operations team at HMP Isle of Wight who diligently pieced together intelligence to stop a security breach. This is exactly the sort of excellent public service that the police and prison service provide to protect the public and reduce reoffending.”
