YORK ESCAPE

17TH April 1983 Yorkshire Post

THE GREAT ESCAPE! DAVIDS CELL FEAT BEATS HOUDINI.

Children’s magician David De-val escaped from the condemned cell today – and claimed to have beaten the great Houdini.

In just three minutes he freed himself from the cell in the notorious 18th century debtor’s prison, now part of York’s Castle Museum.

Nearly 80 years ago Houdini turned down a challenge to try one of his amazing escapes from the cell where highway man Dick Turpin spent his last night before his execution.

David 44 of Springhead Oldham had been manacled and shackled to the 6ft thick walls of the grizzly cell by deputy museum curator Hilary McGowan.

He was padlocked into the same Iron waist girdle that held Turpin, had handcuffs attached to the girdle locked around his wrists and had 18th century leg irons locked onto position on both legs with antique handcuffs.

PADLOCKED

Mrs McGowan then padlocked the irons to a heavy chain that had been there since the prison was built in 1705.

De-val wearing a track suit was locked in the cell with his clothes locked in another room. But three minutes after about 30 Press, TV and media men had filed out of the cell; De-val was seen running down the corridor in his ordinary clothes.

YORK CELL ESCAPE 1983

This is an account of David's Dick Turpin cell escape according to Frank Koval.

On March 24th, 1983 David received a letter from Dr Graham Nicholson, Curator of the castle museum, York, challenging him to escape from the very famous prison cell under his care. Dr Nicholson wrote 'I would be very happy to challenge you to try, so long as you allowed yourself to be shackled and chained in an authentic eighteenth century manner. I should add that the windows are double and triple barred, and there are some pretty thick doors and walls.

David was overjoyed. Many people have claimed to have Houdini's jail escape secret but he now had an opportunity of proving that he had the real secret! He wrote back to Dr. Nicholson three days after he had received the challenge saying, 'I wait for you to name the day and date and I'll be more than happy to accept your challenge'.

The cell at York is, indeed, very famous. It was no less than the condemned cell in the Debtors prison. The cell walls are six feet thick and the tiny windows are securely barred. Dick Turpin spent the last night of his life there, before being executed at the Knavesmire in April 1739. So, the escape attempt was arranged to take place on April 18th, 1983.

David swung the publicity machine into operation immediately. He was photographed handover a sealed file on the Houdini secret to his bank manager. Journalist Stephen Pile covered the coming event for the Sunday Times in his column on the leader page of the newspaper. Dr Nicholson also played his part by issuing a press release which began, 'Dick Turpin couldn't do it! Houdini wouldn't do it! Can David De-val do it?'.

On Monday April 18th 1983, the press arrived in strength and crews from BBC TV and Yorkshire television fussed over their equipment. After the interviews with the media, David was taken to the privacy of an adjoining cell by Dr. Rosemary Swain who had been brought in from York district hospital. There David stripped off all his clothing and was examined thoroughly by Dr Swain. She then minutely checked a track suit that David had taken along, before allowing him to put it on. Then, looking somewhat shy after the physical examination, he returned to the Turpin cell. Under the sceptical scrutiny of the press, David allowed the steel waist band to be locked tightly on him. Then his wrists were locked on each side of the waist band. His ankles were secured in heavy leg irons and finally a short chain was locked at one end to the waist band and to a ring attached to the wall at the other end.