How daring plot to bust John Anslow out of prison sparked worldwide hunt

John Anslow wanted a new life on the run in the Cyprus sun with his partner and child.

And using coded messages, a mobile phone smuggled into prison and an incredible amount of planning and teamwork, the plan worked. Perfectly.

On January 23 last year Tipton man Anslow – the suspect of a Staffordshire murder – escaped from custody.

• Two cleared in John Anslow escape trial

Three masked men armed with sledgehammers and a shotgun stopped the prison van Anslow was travelling in as he made his way from HMP Hewell near Redditch to Stafford Crown Court.

They smashed windows and forced the van driver out, punching him in the face, before ordering a female officer to open the door to Anslow's cell.

She did, and just seconds later he was gone, still wearing his distinctive yellow and blue prison clothes and in handcuffs, but sat in a car which careered through the streets of Redditch and towards Birmingham travelling at speeds of up to 100mph.

All that remained on the quiet leafy street was an empty white prison van, surrounded by police tape.

The daredevil escape sparked a huge manhunt which spanned three police forces and led to Anslow being brandished as Britain's most wanted man.

The plan required a large team to make it work.

A team of people he trusted, people he knew wouldn't talk and would be able to follow orders to the finest detail.

The plan they concucted would mean Anslow and his partner Samantha Glover, would start a new life together in Cyprus, with Glover joining him later.

They even took their daughter with them to start their life in the sun, enrolling her in the local school while the pair worked in a bar.

But the dream would not last.

Anslow was deported back to the United Kingdom in March of this year, 13 months on from his escape, after he was flagged up for immigration offences by authorities in northern Cyprus.

Glover would return later, eight months pregnant with their second child.

And now with two guilty verdicts at Woolwich Crown Court – to go with five guilty pleas by others including Anslow before the trial began – the case is closed.

But as a senior officer from West Mercia Police involved in the case admitted, at first it was a minefield to piece together just how Anslow had done it.

"It was difficult to get our heads around," he said.

"In prison escapes the first priority is of course to locate the prisoner.

"Then you're looking at the prisoner responsible for the physical removal of him – that's difficult enough in itself. But it's been a painstaking investigation of many defendants who had different roles to play – they weren't all involved in the same event.

"It's certainly the most complex and detailed investigation I've been involved in."

Police do not know how long the plan had been hatched for, but it was almost certainly months in the making.

They followed the trail from December 22, 2011, when Anslow received a Christmas card in his cell.

On the face of it this was a friendly season's greeting.

Indeed the generic message inside the card read:?"Wishing you a very Merry Christmas filled with fun and surprises!"

But in actual fact the card contained a secret coded message which gave Anslow crucial details as to how he would escape.

Written by associate Stuart Reid, it was signed 'love from Stratford' and contained a numerical code which Reid suggested in the card was an insurance number. In fact the number was a mobile phone number, but written in code, in such a way that the code has never been cracked.

But Reid's involvement was proved when his handwriting was examined by experts who confirmed in court that it was his.

Reid wrote in the card:?"Haven't heard from you in a while, been quite difficult to contact you, remember our meeting in Stratford it was a funny day with your pal."

It added:?"I have left the agreement number for you, add one and we should sort out the insurance for you."

Anslow had a phone inside prison and this was crucial to his escape – with the suspected killer even using it when he was in the prison van, to let his associates know which one of the convoy he was in.

A prison inmate also played a fundamental role - Luke Hazel put together the three-man crew who would act out the escape.

Hazel was linked by police to a Seat Ibiza car which was used on a reconnaissance trip by defendants around Stafford on January 16 – a week before the escape.

Another scouting trip had been made a day earlier around the area of HMP Hewell – with a crew deciding whether it would be easier to bust Anslow out at the start of his journey to Stafford Crown Court or at the end.

The senior investigator said of Hazel: "John Anslow relied on Luke Hazel. Anslow didn't know these three other men. It would all have involved a lot of planning and there were a lot of people to be trusted.

"They had to be able to trust people, because sometimes people talk."

That three-man team assembled by Hazel included Moysha Shepherd – who police suspect drove the getaway car.

Nicknamed 'The Stig' after the famous racing car character on BBC's Top Gear motoring show, Shepherd was said to be an expert driver.

He, along with Ryan Powell, was part of the team which whisked Anslow off in a silver Volkswagen Scirocco, before dumping that and switching to a Mercedes C63, which was driven to Birmingham. There Anslow was handed to Robert Riddell and Paul Cadby, who met up with card-writer Reid, before travelling to Coventry.

Reid – in whose house passport photos of Anslow were discovered by police – helped the prisoner get to Merseyside but from then on his movements are a mystery, apart from the fact he arrived in northern Cyprus before his girlfriend landed in May.

The senior officer said of the many handovers: "The more handovers and the more people involved, the more confusion it creates.

"It's done to distance themselves and create subterfuge."

As for the sun-kissed Cyprus lifestyle which followed for Anslow, the police know very little.

The senior officer said: "We don't know anything about what he did while he was over there. In evidence Samantha said when she got there she got a job in a bar, as did he, and their daughter went to a local school."

Even without Anslow's return this year, the rest of the team had already been identified and police were proceeding with court action.

His return – 'great timing' according to the police – was ideal but the case was not hanging on it.

However with the others it was 'all or nothing' said police, with every detail of their phone conversations and links painstakingly constructed.

The police case itself may have been hugely wide-ranging and complex, but the officer said that it was Anslow himself who left crucial clues behind which helped their investigation, including the Christmas card and details of phone numbers.

Indeed, a piece of paper bearing Cadby's phone number was recovered from Anslow's prison property.

The senior investigator added: "It was largely tied together via pieces of paper left in his cell.

"Anslow wasn't fully controlling the plan, but he made sure the right people were in the right place to do the organising for him," he added. "He would have undoubtedly started the ball rolling and identified key members of the team. It was a very sophisticated plan which was perfectly executed. They had a bit of luck and took a lot of risks. But it worked."