HMP Dartmoor, despite its formidable reputation as an impenetrable, high-security prison, only houses non-violent criminals these days.

Plans to close Dartmoor Prison in 2023 may be shelved as the Government struggles to provide enough places for an expected rise in prisoner numbers. The Prison Service announced in 2013 that the jail was scheduled to close, and gave 10 years’ notice to the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns the Devon site.

Dartmoor’s dark history For more than 200 years, Dartmoor prison has been home to some of the UK’s most dangerous criminals. Most notable, Frank Mitchell ‘The Mad Axeman’. He escaped and caused one of the biggest manhunts the UK has seen! Unfortunately, recapture was never his fate.

The most notorious prisoners of Dartmoor jail revealed

• Frank Mitchell, or ‘The Mad Axeman’, flanked by two prison guards.
• John George Haigh.
• Arthur Owens.
• Moondyne Joe.
• Jack “the Hat” McVitie.
• Jack “Spot” Comer.
• “Mad” Frankie Fraser.
• Eamon de Valera.

“ 1854 – February 5th. “Last Sunday two convicts made their escape from Dartmoor prisons. They proceeded across the river Dart, and were making their way towards Ashburton, when seen by a farmer, who suspected they were convicts from their dress.

Outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke said: “Despite the planned closure, Dartmoor continues to hold more than 600 prisoners in accommodation and facilities that need significant investment to make them fit for purpose. It is now a training prison owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.

Among the most famous prisoners at Dartmoor was Frank Mitchell (the ‘Mad Axeman’) who escaped and despite the biggest manhunt ever mounted on the moor was never recaptured.

Modern escapes. A number of more modern escape attempts have taken place from Exeter prison. One of the most incredible occurred as recently as 2011, when two inmates cunningly dug and hid a hole in their cell wall. Several layers of bricks were removed from the 50-inch thick wall, revealing daylight.

category B
HM Prison Exeter is a category B local and resettlement men’s prison, located in Exeter in the county of Devon, England. It holds men sentenced by the courts of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset. There are also prisoners from further afield who have been transferred from other prisons.

In May 2018 Peter Clarke put Exeter Prison under an emergency protocol having found the prison, “unequivocally poor” with soaring levels of violence and self-harm. An inspection in May had found high levels of self-harm and 6 suicides, also high levels of assaults against prisoners and staff and high drug use.

Dartmoor was re-opened in 1851 as a civilian prison, but closed again in 1917, when it was converted into a Home Office Work Centre for certain conscientious objectors granted release from prison; cells were kept unlocked, inmates wore their own clothes and could visit the village in their off-duty time.

“Two convicts escaped from prison at Dartmoor on Saturday night last. On arriving at Buckfastleigh they broke into a dwelling-house, threatened the inmates with violence if they made a stir, changed their apparel, and left their convicts dress behind them.

Benjamin Sims, a convict warder at Dartmoor stated that the prisoner was sentenced to 15 years transportation at the Lewes assizes in December 1858. He was confined at the Dartmoor Prison in the same cell with two other convicts]

The commandant, Captain T. G. Shortland, suspected them of a design to break out of the gaol. This was the reverse of the truth in general, as they would lose their chance of going on the ships, but a few had made threats of the sort, and the commandant was very uneasy.