Drug-addicted prisoner just weeks from release escaped jail to kick heroin habit

David Foskett, who was serving time for ambushing a pizza delivery driver in Lancaster, revealed being returned to a higher security jail had helped him kick his drugs habit.

The 49-year-old said he feared life in the more relaxed surroundings of HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire was bad for his health. Drugs were more available, he claimed, and he was concerned he would fall back into addiction.

But since handing himself in and being sent to the closed prison at Preston he had managed to get clean, the city’s Crown Court heard.

Foskett, of Alexandra Road, Morecambe was handed an extra four month sentence after admitting escaping from jail.

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Judge Richard Gioserano heard Foskett was nearing the end of a six-year jail term and had been transferred to HMP Sudbury – an open prison - to see out his sentence.

But one day in November last year he was found to be missing during a tea-time roll call. Despite a police manhunt he stayed at large for around two weeks before he handed himself in at Lancaster Police Station. He was returned to prison to serve the remainder of his original sentence.

His defence barrister Jonathan Lally told the court that Foskett admitted he had been doing well in prison and was “not far away” from being released. But to get parole he had to undergo two home visits and, as his home after release would have been a hostel, the system was overstretched and there were no hostel places available at that time.

“All the hostels in the area were full, so he was effectively lost in the system,” explained Mr Lally. “So even though he was eligible for parole he couldn’t get parole.

“He was very frustrated. This was a loss of hope. He was in an open prison where drugs are far more accessible than in closed prisons. He was concerned he would go back to drugs.

“It (escaping) is a ridiculous thing for him to do bearing in mind he was eligible for release.”

Mr Lally said: “His biggest punishment (it would seem) is being back in a closed prison. But actually he says it has done him a lot of good going back to Preston.

“He had been on methadone, but he was concerned (at Sudbury) he would relapse into drugs. Back in Preston he is now drug free and feeling better than he has done for quite some time.”

Judge Gioserano said Foskett had “simply walked out” of prison and had been at large for almost two weeks.

He told him: “You were eligible for release but you had been frustrated because of the unavailability to obtain home leave.” He said escaping was “entirely the wrong way to go about it.”

“But I have to take into account the circumstances of you walking out and then surrendering (to police). You have done yourself a good deal of harm because you are in a closed prison. You have undone a good deal of the good work you have already put in place.”

Foskett was sent to prison in 2020 at Preston Crown Court for his part in the armed robbery of a food delivery driver.

He and an accomplice lured the pizza driver to an address in Ashbourne Drive, Lancaster with a telephone order shortly before midnight and lay in wait, one carrying a machete and the other a knife.

When the driver arrived they threatened him with the weapons in an attempt to steal his takings. The offence was made more serious because the man’s partner and five-year-old child were in the car.

When he escaped from HMP Sudbury he had already served four years – a statutory two thirds of his sentence which would have allowed him to apply for parole.