A fraudster managed to escape from prison after forging an email that granted him bail.

Neil Moore, 28, was serving time at Wandsworth Prison for a £1.8 million fraud, when he used a mobile phone that was smuggled into the jail to create a fake email account.


He set up an email that imitated Her Majesty’s Court Service, and used it to send an email claiming that Southwark Crown Court had approved his release on 10 March 2014.

HMP Wandsworth, where Neil Moore escaped from (Picture: PA)

But his elaborate ruse was uncovered when solicitors prepared to interview him three days later, and found that he had escaped.

Moore, from Ilford, east London, handed himself into three days later.



Southwark Crown Court heard how Moore managed to escape, after registering a fake website in the name of Detective Inspector Chris Soole, and provided the contact details and address for the Royal Courts of Justice.

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Ian Paton, prosecuting, said that Moore’s escape was ‘one of extraordinary criminal inventiveness’.

‘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’.

And Judge David Hunt, QC, described the crime as ‘ingenious’.

At the time of his escape, Moore was serving time for using four different false identities to commit fraud totalling £1,819,000.

He had posed as staff from Santander, Barclays Bank and Lloyd Bank, and managed to convince corporations such as Volkswagen to hand over large sums of money.

He even answered calls using both a man and woman’s voice, switching identity mid-call, and was so convincing that police also charged his partner with the crime, before dropping the charges against her.

Moore pleaded guilty to one count of escape from lawful custody and eight counts of fraud. He will be sentenced on 20 April.