Usman Khan’s time in prison could hold the key to explaining his murderous attack

London Bridge terrorist Usman Khan appears to have spent some of his final months behind bars at HMP Whitemoor, a high-security prison near Peterborough, where some of the country’s most dangerous people are held. The prison’s chequered history could be relevant to the horrific events that unfolded in the capital last week.

I last visited Whitemoor near the beginning of 2016. This ‘new build’ prison, finished in 1992 with space for around 450 inmates, was designed to be escape proof. Two years later, five IRA terrorists and a gangster brutally disabused this notion by escaping over the perimeter wall armed with a gun that had been smuggled into the ‘supermax’ special secure unit where they were held. A prison officer was shot during the escape.

The withering official report into what happened was a masterpiece of bureaucratic skewering. The author of this review Sir John Woodcock spoke of prison staff in the control room having their evening game of Scrabble interrupted by the sight on CCTV of the prisoners going over the wall.