ബ്രിട്ടനെ മുൾമുനയിൽ നിറുത്തിയ ചാരൻ | BS Chandra Mohan| Mlife Daily
Five years into his imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs, Blake escaped with the help of three men he had met in prison, Sean Bourke and two anti-nuclear campaigners, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle. The escape was masterminded by Bourke, who first approached Randle only for financial help with the escape. Randle became more involved and suggested they bring Pottle in on the plan as well, as he had suggested springing Blake to Randle in 1962 when they were both still in prison. Their motives for helping Blake to escape were their belief that the 42-year sentence was "inhuman" and because of a personal liking of Blake. Several sources also state that the plan was financed by film director Tony Richardson.
Bourke had smuggled a walkie-talkie to Blake to communicate with him while in prison. On 22 October 1966, Blake broke a window at the end of the corridor where his cell was located. Then between 6 and 7 p.m., while most of the other inmates and guards were at the weekly film showing, Blake climbed through the window, slid down a porch and made his way to the perimeter wall. There, Bourke, who had been released from the prison earlier, threw a rope ladder over the wall. Blake then used it to climb over the wall and they drove off to a safe house. During the escape, Blake fractured his wrist jumping from the perimeter wall, but apart from that it all went according to plan.
After the escape, it became apparent that the safe house was not suitable, as it was a bedsit that was cleaned by the landlady once a week. Blake then spent several days moving between Randle and Pottle's friends' houses, including that of Rev. John Papworth in Earls Court. Subsequently, Blake and Bourke moved in with Pottle, staying with him while preparing to get out of the country. They smuggled Blake across the English Channel in a camper van, then drove across northern Europe and through West Germany to the Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing. Having safely crossed the border without incident, Blake met his handlers in East Germany and completed his escape to the Soviet Union.
Pottle and Randle were not prosecuted until 1991. Their defence was a claim of moral justification for aiding Blake, whose 42-year sentence they considered to be excessively long and "inhuman". Despite being directed that they must find the men guilty, the jury acquitted them both; an act known as jury nullification in which a jury uses its absolute discretion to find as it sees fit. Bourke was not prosecuted for his role since Ireland refused to extradite him to the United Kingdom to face charges that were political in nature