EXETER, England – Guards at a British prison prevented two prisoners from staging a "Shawshank Redemption" style escape, after discovering they had dug through a cell wall and disguised their escape route with paper bricks.
Several layers of bricks were removed from a 50-inch thick wall at Exeter Prison in Devon, southwestern England, before the inmates covered up their work with stolen craft materials, the Western Morning News reported Wednesday.
The two men, who were not identified, managed to break through enough mortar to see daylight. They planned to escape from the building and scale a 20-foot wall topped with razor wire.
However, their plan was thwarted by sharp-eyed guards who spotted brick dust on the outside wall of the cell and found the fake bricks.
Detective Constable Alex Bingham, of Exeter Criminal Investigation Department, said, "We believe that the two inmates may have orchestrated a move to one of the only cells that you could possibly dig from."
"They dug through the wall and used papier mache to fill in where the mortar had fallen out," he added. "They have then used paint to paint over what they have done. If you did a visual check of the cell you would not have noticed it."
The prisoners were found with paint in their possession, and it is thought they made their own tools to dig out the bricks.
The two men, who were moved to separate prisons, were charged with attempting to escape lawful custody.
In the 1994 film adaptation of Stephen King's novel, Tim Robbins stars as a prisoner who tunnels his way out of a secure US prison, covering the hole in his cell with a poster of Rita Hayworth.
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