Urgent manhunt after convicted attacker Marwan Jumaa escapes hospital escort

Marwan Jumaa, who is serving a custodial sentence for assaulting two women, escaped on Tuesday evening after being transferred from a secure hospital facility to North Manchester Hospital for medical treatment. Greater Manchester Police said he was considered a risk to himself and others and warned the public not to approach him.

The escape turned a routine medical movement into a custody failure with wider implications for hospital escort procedures. Jumaa was being taken under guard when he absconded, meaning the breakaway happened at the point where secure detention, clinical care and transport controls were supposed to overlap. Police mounted an urgent appeal across Greater Manchester as officers searched for the 20-year-old.

The case has put scrutiny on how prisoners in secure hospital settings are transferred to outside medical appointments. A movement from a secure unit to North Manchester Hospital requires tight coordination between escort staff, receiving hospital personnel and custody systems, and the fact that Jumaa got away during that process points to a breach somewhere in that chain. Authorities have not publicly set out the exact circumstances of the escape, but the warning to the public not to intervene suggested officers were treating the manhunt as a safety issue as well as a missing-prisoner search.

Jumaa was later arrested and returned to custody. His escape, followed by a swift recapture, closed one immediate danger but left the deeper question of how a prisoner under hospital escort was able to break away from secure supervision in the first place.