In the other incident, believed to have taken place some months ago, the suspect is also still at large. The British Home Office has not made public any details about the escapes.Both men now on the run will have been suspected of playing a role in international terrorism, possibly linked to al Qaida groups, security sources said. The most recent incident is believed to involve a man who appeared at the central criminal court of the Old Bailey here earlier this year. He was believed to have climbed through a window to evade staff at a psychiatric unit at Middlesex University Hospital at Isleworth, south-west London.
It was thought he was handed his control order on April 5. His admission to the mental health unit was thought to have been a more recent development and would not normally have been part of the control order conditions.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Any breach of security will be investigated on a case-by-case basis. We do not discuss individual cases." Control orders act as a loose form of house arrest, and usually place suspects under a curfew and require them to report regularly to police. They were brought in at the beginning of last year as a replacement for indefinite detention without trial or charge.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Since control orders were the Government's flagship anti-terrorism measure, this is a huge embarrassment for them. As we have always made clear, the danger of control orders is that they short-circuit due process and keep suspects in a state of limbo. Our aim must be to get suspects into court and, where they are guilty, convicted. This should act as a spur for the Government to develop more robust ways to get suspects into court in the first place, such as using intercept evidence."
Britains opposition Conservative Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "This is extraordinary. The Government justified control orders on the basis of protecting the public from potentially dangerous terrorists. It is therefore hard to understand how these men were allowed to escape, especially while undergoing psychiatric assessment."