Prisoner escapes jail in cardboard box

Prisoner escapes jail in cardboard box

One of France's highest-profile prisoners escaped from jail on Wednesday by packing himself into a cardboard box.

Embarrassed officials were at a loss to explain how Jean-Pierre Treiber, 45, a double murder suspect, managed to elude detection in the box he had built himself at a workshop in the high security prison of Auxerre, Burgundy.

With its hidden human cargo, the box was loaded with dozens of others onto a lorry for delivery to the Yonne region, southeast of Paris.

During the 100-mile journey, he broke free and leapt from the lorry. The driver only realised there was a problem once he had reached his destination, when he spotted a hole in the tarpaulin covering the boxes, some of which were flattened.

Back in 1971, I had the same idea whilst working in the mop shop at Liverpool Prison. I worked out I could squeeze into the cardboard boxes for the mops. It had to entail someone strong enough to pick up the box with me in it and make it appear lighter than it was. During the planning stage, the boxes suddenly became a third of their original size. I summised that somebody must have tipped off the authorities.