Who Was At The Center Of A Huge Police Convoy On M1 Motorway?

Early last week I was travelling Southbound on the M1 between Rotherham and Nottingham. I saw a police helicopter approaching from the south and as it got closer I saw a huge convoy of police vehicles escorting a heavily armoured prison van.

The convoy had, in addition to the chopper, two marked police cars and a bike upfront, followed by the heavily armoured white prison van with blacked out windows (much bulkier than a regular prison van), this was followed by two more marked police cars and another bike and then further behind in the regular flow of traffic was another two 'backup' police cars without there sirens or lights on.

I have no idea who could be dangerous enough to need this much security. At first i thought it could have been the terrorist Abu Qatada who has been released from jail but he is under house arrest in West London and was in prison in Worcestershire so wouln't have been in this part fo the country.

Does anybody have any idea who could have been at the centre of this convoy and why they would need so much security?!


[edit on 22-6-2008 by fiftyfifty]

I also just came across this forum with a similar thread.. i'm not the only one wodering!

Sheffield forum

Wasn't the mad cleric abu hamsa moved to London recently for his extradition hearing? he was coming from max security, dont know where from though, he's got 2 weeks to get permission to appeal against his extradition to the USA for creating a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

have seen this every day for the last couple of weeks always, around about the same time..

probably none payment of parking ticket.

Could have just been some unknown character. Maybe the police had a tip off someone would try to break the prisoner out in transit. Or maybe they just wanted to be extra careful.

It seems that a lot have people have seen it recently. It is a daily occurance but I don't know why

I too have seen this going southbound in the morning and occasionally northbound in the evening. I would love to know what's going on. Glad other people have been wondering too!

I used to live near Strangeways prison in Manc when I was a student at MMU.My morning bus journey would regularly be held up by convoys of armed police etc transporting some haevy con somewhere.If there was that much attention to the transportee then there's probably serious threat of being sprung by their mates or it could be a terrorist.