HMP Whitemoor: where is prison featured in Channel 5 documentary, notorious inmates, and 1994 escape explained

HM Prison Whitemoor is a high security UK prison which has housed some of the most notorious criminals from across the UK, including serial killers and IRA members. The facility is the focus of Channel 5 documentary Inside HMP Whitemoor: Evil Behind Bars.

The documentary explores the history of the prison over the last three decades, including the infamous and short-lived escape just three years after the prison opened, and the rise in the number of Islamic terrorists confined there.

Other prisons featured in the Evil Behind Bars Channel 5 series include Full Sutton and Wakefield. This is everything you need to know about HMP Whitemoor.

Where is Whitemoor Prison?

HM Prison Whitemoor is a category A (high security) men’s prison located in the market town of March, Cambridgeshire. The prison opened on the site of an old railway yard in 1991 at a cost of £58 million. 

Around 500 prisoners are currently detained at Whitemoor across four wings including the Fens unit for prisoners with personality disorders. Each inmate has their own cell. Sports facilities at the prison include a sports hall, weights room, fitness suite and an outside astroturf pitch.

In 2016 Cambs Times reported that it was more expensive to house inmates at Whitemoor than at any other prison in Britain. It cost £212 per inmate per night, or £77,635  a year, compared to Britain’s cheapest category A prison, Wakefield (£126 per night). 

Who are the infamous Whitemoor Prison inmates?

Dennis Nilsen

The Scottish serial killer who strangled 16 young men in his London flat and boiled his victims’ remains, spent several years locked up at Whitemoor. He was transferred there from HMP Full Sutton in 1993 and was placed in increased segregation from his fellow prisoners. During his stay at Whitemoor, Nilsen’s sentence was extended from a minimum of 25 years to a whole-life tariff.  

Paul Magee

Magee was a volunteer in the Provisional IRA - he was put on trial in Northern Ireland for killing a member of the SAS but escaped jail and later fled to England. He was jailed for the 1992 killing of Special Constable Glenn Goodman in Yorkshire and the attempted murder of three other officers.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was sent to Whitemoor in 1993. The following year he was involved in the infamous prison escape. Magee was later transferred to Belmarsh and repatriated to Ireland in 1998 to serve the remainder of his sentence there. He was released in late 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Kamel Bourgass

Bourgass is an Algerian terrorist who was imprisoned for his involvement in the 2002 ricin plot. It is alleged that Bourgass, along with several others, planned to attack the London Underground using ricin poison. He was charged with conspiracy to commit public nuisance by the use of poisons and sentenced to 17 years in prison. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Detective Constable Stephen Oake with a kitchen knife. Bourgass was detained at Whitemoor in 2010 and spent several months in segregation there.

What was the 1994 Whitemoor Prison Escape?

On 9 September 1994 six prisoners, among them several IRA members including Paul Magee, escaped from the Whitemoor’s Special Secure Unit. They had managed to smuggle a gun into the prison and used it to effect their escape -  after smuggling a gun into the prison. All six prisoners were recaptured within minutes of leaving the prison complex.

When is Inside HMP Whitemoor: Evil Behind Bars on TV?

Inside HMP Whitemoor: Evil Behind Bars will air on Channel 5 on Wednesday 5 April at 9pm. The episode will be available to watch on My5v shortly after it is first broadcast.