Two men have escaped from HMP Pentonville and left mannequins in their beds to fool staff

Two inmates at HMP Pentonville have escaped from the North London prison after cutting through cell bars and scaling a perimeter wall.

To top it off, in an event not a million miles away from Clint Eastwood’s bust out in Escape To Alcatraz, prison guards at Pentonville realised the prisoners had escape when mannequins were found in the pair’s beds, giving a whole new meaning to the mannequin challenge. Police were then called shortly before midday today.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the two inmates, aged 28 and 31, at Police were called to used diamond-tipped cutting tools to get through the bars on their cells before making their exit from the prison grounds.

HMP Pentonville, which houses over 1,200 adult men, had previously been referred to as “the most dramatic example of failure” within the prison estate by then justice secretary, Michael Gove.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said that one of the prisoners was serving ”a very long sentence.

A prison spokesperson said: "Public protection is our top priority and we take escapes from custody extremely seriously.

"We are working closely with the police and are urgently investigating the matter."

The escapees were on wing G, the same wing where 21-year-old inmate Jamal Mahmoud was murdered in a stabbing last month.

Efforts to locate the escaped inmates are ongoing.

Unfortunately this episode is far from the first time that crafty convicts have done a number on the Pentonville prison guards. Over the past ten years there have been a grand total of four escapes including today’s mannequin tricksters.

In 2006 a prisoner escaped during transit from the prison to a hospital facility.

In 2009 convicted arsonist Julien Chautard escaped by clinging to the underside of a prison van, but handed himself in to the police four days later.

Three years later in 2012 John Massey, a convicted murderer, managed to climb over the prison walls using a makeshift rope. He was recaptured two days later when police intelligence lead them to his location in Kent.

Lesson learned: If you want to escape from prison, your best bet is HMP Pentonville.