For Bracknell Nostalgia this week, we are looking back to when Richard Upcher, an escaped Broadmoor patient, went on the loose in February 1965.

He had been admitted to the establishment in June 1961 under a hospital order with an unlimited restriction on discharge following his conviction for burglary.

By the time of the escape, he had made some progress along the ladder of privilege, and was in a block where considerable liberty of movement is allowed.

He escaped nearly four years later from the block on the night of February 21, by concealing himself in a hot-plate under the serving hatch in the dining room when other patients left.

Upcher would then break a pane of glass in a window of the dining room and squeezing through the protective bars.

Upon his escape, he succeeded in scaling an inner and an outer security wall, making use of various aids, including some rubble on a site where patients had been working, and a ladder in a locked shed.

His escape caused nationwide news as the police, army and various other emergency personnel were called to try and find Upcher who now was at large.

However, he sas seen on top of the outer wall of the asylum at about 10.45pm on the same night he had escaped by a nurse who, realising that he might be accompanied by other patients, ran about 300 yards to the house of another nurse who telephoned the hospital lodge.

Eventually, he gave himself up at about 9 p.m. the following evening to troops in the Caesar’s Camp area, less than two miles from the hospital, and he had not, while absent, inflicted injury or damage of any kind either to person or to property.

Mr William van Straubenzee, who was the Conservative MP for Wokingham at the time, revealed that whilst he knew the ‘full details’ of the escape, he opted not to disclose everything as he did not want to give the security a ‘bad name’.