Thames Valley Police has appealed twice in six days over men who absconded from the open prison near Aylesbury, where monitors logged 12 absconds during 2025.
Thames Valley Police has issued two appeals in six days to trace men who absconded from HMP Spring Hill, the open prison at Grendon Underwood about ten miles north-west of Aylesbury.
The first was published at 10.15am on Tuesday 15 September. It says a 26 year old absconded between midnight and 2.10am on Sunday 13 September, and that he is known to frequent Coventry. (Thames Valley Police, 15 September)
The second was published at 1.56pm on Monday 21 September. It says a 45 year old absconded “at round 7pm yesterday (21/9)”, and that he is known to frequent Swindon and Reading. The force’s own statement gives that date two ways, since it was published on the 21st. (Thames Valley Police, 21 September)
Both appeals carry the same instruction from police staff member Evelina Kersyte: do not approach the man, call 999 instead, and call 101 or use the force website with the reference number if you know where he is. Neither appeal had been updated to say the man had been found when we checked on Wednesday 23 September.
The force has named and described both men on its own website, and both pages are linked above. We are not republishing the names here, because neither man has been charged with an offence arising from the abscond.
What an abscond actually is
The distinction matters, and the Ministry of Justice defines it precisely. “An abscond is an escape that does not involve overcoming a physical security barrier or restraint. It is only possible to abscond from open prison conditions.” (HMPPS Annual Digest 2025 to 2026)
Spring Hill is an open prison. The government’s own page for it says so plainly: “Spring Hill is a men’s open prison in the village of Grendon Underwood, Buckinghamshire. It is jointly managed with Grendon Prison, which is on the same site.” Around 330 men are held there, and prisoners can be assessed for release on temporary licence to work, do community work and prepare for release. (Spring Hill Prison, GOV.UK)
So nobody climbed a wall. Men who are already held in the lowest-security conditions the prison estate has simply left.
Spring Hill had the most absconds of any prison in England and Wales
This is where the local story stops being about two men and starts being about a pattern.
The Ministry of Justice publishes absconds by establishment in the data tool that accompanies the HMPPS Annual Digest. Its figures for Spring Hill, by financial year:
Absconds at Spring Hill were in single figures for years, then more than doubled. Figures from the Ministry of Justice escapes and absconds data tool.
In 2024-25 Spring Hill recorded 11 absconds, more than any other prison in England and Wales. Kirkham and Sudbury were next, on 10 each.
In 2025-26 it recorded 9, third behind Kirkham on 21 and Sudbury on 19. Spring Hill’s number came down slightly while the national figure went up sharply.
Nationally, the digest is blunt about the direction of travel:
- there were 78 absconds in the year to March 2026, a 37% increase from 57 the year before
- 30 of those who absconded were still at large after 30 days
- the share still at large after 30 days rose from 26% in the year to March 2025 to 38% in the year to March 2026
Escapes, which are the harder thing, are far rarer: 14 in the 12 months to March 2026, 11 of them from contractor escorts, and no category A prisoner escaped.
The prison’s own monitors counted 12 absconds last year
Spring Hill has an Independent Monitoring Board, a statutory panel of unpaid volunteers who have the right to go anywhere in the prison at any time. Its annual report for 2025 was published on 20 May 2026, and it counts on a calendar year rather than the Ministry of Justice financial year, so its figure is not the same one.
Its finding: “There were 12 absconds and four prisoners failed to return from release on temporary licence (ROTL) compared with seven and four respectively in 2024. In addition, two prisoners were classed as temporary release failures.” (HMP Springhill IMB annual report 2025)
That is a jump from seven to 12 in a year, measured by the people who go into the prison every week.
The report puts that alongside several other things that moved in the same 12 months:
- drug finds up 144% and phone finds up 52% on the previous year
- 698 intelligence reports about drugs, against 308, 255 and 215 in the three years before
- adjudications charged up 57%, and prisoners transferred back to closed conditions up 59%, from 113 in 2024 to 180 in 2025
- around 24% of the population identified as having connections to serious and organised crime, similar to 2024
- two life threatening incidents, with night staff giving life-saving treatment in one
The Board’s explanation for why some of this goes unanswered is a staffing one, and it is stated as a headline finding: “Staffing levels, especially on night duty, mean that response to suspicious or unusual activity is often limited to observing and reporting.”
The report also notes a change in who is at Spring Hill. The Temporary Presumptive Recategorisation Scheme lets eligible prisoners move from category C to category D, open conditions, earlier than they normally could, to ease capacity in closed prisons. The Board checked whether that group was over-represented in men sent back to closed conditions and found it was not: for 11 months of the year they made up 25% of the roll but 22% of the transfers out.
The minister replied, and did not mention absconds
Lord Timpson, the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, answered the Board’s report on 26 June 2026.
His four-page reply and its annex deal with the accommodation huts, the education budget, prisoners’ property, employment on release and the Sentencing Act 2026. It thanks staff for their response to the two life threatening incidents and welcomes the Board’s finding that the prison “continues to operate safely, with low levels of self-harm, incidents of violence and the need to use force”. (Response to the 2025 HMP Spring Hill IMB annual report)
It does not mention absconds. The words “abscond”, “illicit” and “staffing” do not appear in it.
The most recent full inspection of Spring Hill by HM Inspectorate of Prisons was in 2022, so the Board’s annual report is currently the only regular independent account of what is happening there.
What it means for you
- An abscond is not a jailbreak. Spring Hill is an open prison and men there are in the lowest-security conditions in the system. Nobody got past a fence.
- If you think you have seen either man, do not approach him. Thames Valley Police asks you to call 999. If you know where he is or have seen him, the force asks for 101 or a report on its website, quoting the reference number in its appeal.
- Both appeals are still live. Neither had an update on the force’s site on 23 September.
- The trend is real, not an impression. Spring Hill went from no recorded absconds in 2023-24 to the highest number of any prison in England and Wales the following year, and its own monitors counted 12 in calendar 2025 against seven in 2024.
- The oversight gap is worth knowing about. The last HMIP inspection was in 2022, and the minister’s reply to the 2025 monitoring report does not address absconds at all.
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