A man was charged with escaping police custody because he went home after no one showed up to take him to prison.
Shaun Molland, 38, spent 90 minutes outside Newton Abbott Magistrates Court, in Devon, after being sentenced to 16 weeks in prison for attacking a police officer.
He had been told to wait there for a prison escort van to whisk him off to start his time behind bars, but instead it lead to ‘one of the funniest cases for ages’.
It seems Serco, a private company with the prison contract, doesn’t attend that particular court on Tuesdays, Molland’s lawyer William Parkhill said.
That meant Molland was left waiting, even after watching the judge go home and staff lock up – and still the escort hadn’t come.
At that point, around 5.30pm on January 28, he decided he too would go home.
‘He did contact the police a few days later and he was picked up by arrangement’, Parkhill said.
That allowed him to start his sentence, but it also landed him with a charge for escaping custody.
Molland, Westhill Avenue, Torquay, reluctantly admitted that charge and was handed a one-day concurrent sentence.
Although the court had no cells to keep him overnight, and prison staff had no powers to detain him, his lawyer accepted Molland ‘should have waited’.
Judge Stephen Climie described it as an ‘unusual set of circumstances’, telling Exeter Crown Court: Molland it seems was left wondering what to do next. The sentence wont impact upon his release.’
Molland is due for release from prison today.
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