Wandsworth Prisoner Neil Moore Creates Fake Court Bail To Escape, Surrenders 3 Days Later

A convicted conman, who was on remand for fraud offenses totaling over 1.8 million pounds ($2.68 million), had managed to escape prison by tricking officials into accepting his fake bail letter. Neil Moore was freed from HM Prison Wandsworth in southwest London earlier this month, media reports said, citing prosecutors.

The 28-year-old had used a mobile phone to create a bogus website and chose a domain name, which was similar to that of the court service. He had used the name of investigating officer Det Insp Chris Soole to register the website. He then posed as a senior court clerk and sent bail instructions to the prison staff who released him on March 10.

His plan was unearthed when his solicitors went to meet him only to find he had disappeared. He, however, surrendered himself three days later.

"A lot of criminal ingenuity harbours in the mind of Mr Moore. The case is one of extraordinary criminal inventiveness, deviousness and creativity, all apparently the developed expertise of this defendant," Prosecutor Ian Paton said, according to the BBC.

Moore pleaded guilty to the charge of escape from lawful custody along with eight other counts of fraud, including one where he posed as staff from banks like Lloyds, Santander and Barclays to amass huge sums of money by deceiving big organizations, according to the Express.

Moore had also reportedly used up to four aliases to conduct fraudulent activities, including putting on a woman’s voice.

“Having been remanded in custody by the court … he promptly set about adapting his skills for deceit, dishonesty and forgery and he engineered his escape,” Paton said, according to Express, while judge Recorder David Hunt QC described his acts as "ingenious" criminality.