A manhunt launched to catch an Ethiopian asylum seeker who escaped from prison has successfully rounded up six suspects who are nothing like him.
"We were told to put the dangerous sex offender on a plane to Addis Ababa," said prison service director Derek Blunder, "but we somehow got the order muddled up and released him with £1,000 pocket money and directions to an agreeable pizza restaurant and the railway station.
"We then put a dragnet over the whole of the UK to catch him - which we didn't, because we're so useless.
"However, we did manage to round up Shergar, Mata Hari, Frida Kahlo, Lord Lucan and Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men.
"We'll be passing them onto the police at Charing Cross station to fit up for random crimes. Then we'll put them in prison for life before releasing them all by mistake, as well."
The Justice Secretary ordered HM Prison Service bosses to lock themselves up for gross incompetence, but they said they had lost the key.
image from gemini.google.com
