Six inmates have escaped in the past month

Judge Michael Heath said he would be writing to Home Secretary David Blunkett after six men escaped from North Sea Camp jail, near Boston, Lincolnshire, in less than a month.

Judge Heath, sentencing the two latest escapees on Monday, said he was "concerned" by the situation and wanted Mr Blunkett and the authorities to look into it.

He made the comment after Lee Spencer, 22, originally of Forest Town, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and Philip Lawson, 21, of Nottingham, each admitted escaping the jail.

Sleeping pills

The pair also pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle-taking, with Spencer admitting further charges of driving without a licence and having no insurance.

Julia King, prosecuting, told Lincoln Crown Court how the men were discovered missing when a roll-call was carried out by prison staff on 9 August.

The following day they were seen by police in a stolen car that Spencer was driving the wrong way down a one-way street in the centre of Boston.

Spencer swore at an officer who spoke to him and then sped off, driving the wrong way around a roundabout and ignoring a red light before crashing.

The court heard he had become so upset by bullying at North Sea Camp that he took two weeks' worth of sleeping tablets in one go and simply walked out.

Four escaped

Lawson, meanwhile, was unhappy at serving his sentence "surrounded" by sex-offenders and escaped after 20 transfer applications were refused.

Spencer was jailed for 18 months, to run consecutively to a 27-month sentence imposed for burglary earlier this year, and banned from driving for a year.

Lawson was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment to run consecutively to an 18-month term he is already serving.

Four other inmates who escaped from North Sea Camp on separate occasions were all jailed at hearings at Lincoln Crown Court earlier this month.