Kevin Barry Artt became a household name as he withstood repeated attempts to have him extradited to the UK. Dan Lawton and Kevin Barry Artt Kevin Barry Artt and James Brosnahan his US attorney Kevin Barry Artt MAZE escapee Kevin Barry Artt had only one thought when he was chained up in a San Diego jail — how do I get out? It was 1992, nine years after the most dramatic jailbreak in British history. Kevin Barry was a hunted man, Margaret Thatcher’s government was desperate to get him back.
He shuffled into the visitors’ room in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre for his first meeting with Dan Lawton, who would be his lawyer in an eight year extradition battle. “It’s like I was looking at Hannibal Lecter,” Dan told the Sunday World this week. “Here he was shackled by hand and foot — escape must have seemed the least likely option, but I asked him anyway.
“‘I’ve already thought about it’ he said without missing a beat. I put my hand up. I don’t want to hear it,” I said.
“‘You’d just need some explosives up here. Blow a hole through the wall, then shinny down a rope ladder to the street. Someone on a motorcycle, waiting’.
“‘Good night’ I said, pretending that I hadn’t heard him,” said Dan. “Kevin laughed.” That was Dan’s first meeting with the one-the-run convicted killer who would become a brother to him.
It took two decades for Kevin Barry Artt to clear his name for the murder of prison officer Albert Miles. In that time Ar.
