LONDON — An escaped British prisoner is taunting police and attracting a growing Internet fan base from his Facebook profile, mocking authorities for failing to find him and openly musing about moving across the Atlantic.
But police say the convicted burglar’s antics on the popular social networking site haven’t gone unnoticed and have appealed to his more than 3,800 Facebook friends to help track him down.
Craig “Lazie” Lynch, 28, escaped from the minimum-security Hollesley Bay Prison near the village of Woodbridge in southern England three months ago. Since then, he’s been regularly updating his Facebook page with ungrammatical digs at police, as well as pictures showing him holding a “wanted” sign or making obscene gestures at the camera.
“i aint handin myself in,” Lynch wrote in one post Tuesday. “why am i going to do their job for them. What do they get payed for. And does anyone have a cannon, i need firing over the atlantic.”
Lynch’s Facebook page is clogged with hundreds of messages from well-wishers, although a few occasionally write in to remind fans that they’re cheering for a criminal.