Clerk jailed for helping rioters

A woman law clerk who helped two Strangeways rioters on the run was jailed for a year yesterday.

Patricia Marsh, 23, had admitted going to meet her client Anthony Bush, 29, when she received a telephone call hours after five of the rioters escaped from court during their trial in February last year.

For 14 hours she drove Bush and a convicted killer who was then Britain's most wanted man, Alan Lord, 32, around the North-west and took them to her home. She even convinced a police road block that they were just her friends.

Marsh, of Tue Brook, Merseyside, a clerk with the Liverpool solicitors Keiron Feilding, was cleared last month of helping the escape of the men by passing a pen torch to Bush but pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting Bush and Lord after the escape.

Judge Gerard Humphries at Manchester Crown Court told her: 'Those who help serious criminals who have escaped deserve punishment.'