The World - News from Dec. 11, 1987

A hijacked helicopter landed in the exercise yard of a top-security prison and whisked two inmates to freedom in a daring breakout--the first of its kind in Britain, police said. Unarmed guards at Gartree Prison in Leicester, about 100 miles north of London, tried to prevent the two men from running to the helicopter but were mobbed by other inmates. Police said the craft then landed nearby, and the two men, along with the accomplice who had hijacked the helicopter, fled in a waiting car. The escapees were identified as Sydney Thomas Draper, 39, sentenced to life for murder, and John Kendall, 36, serving eight years for burglary.