How one man spent 34 years in prison after setting fire to a pair of curtains

David Blagdon’s long-term detention has been described as ‘barbaric’. Whatever his disastrous personal choices, the system failed him repeatedly

There’s never a good time to get a phone call from an escaped prisoner. I was at a talent show in Essex in August 2001, watching a succession of soul singers, when three missed calls from an unknown number appeared on my mobile, starting at 10.07pm. Stepping out of the club, I listened to the first message: “It’s David. I’m at King’s Cross station. This is urgent.”

David Blagdon was a longtime prisoner who had become a friend after I interviewed him for a story in 1999. He’d left the number of a phone box for me to call him back, and when we spoke, he said he was on temporary home leave from prison and needed somewhere to stay. I called my neighbours in London, who agreed to let him in. It was after midnight when I returned to find David chatting to my neighbours, eating a sausage and drinking a beer.

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