The young man who escaped Wandsworth prison offered a mixed picture of ineptitude and threat, according to police

At the heart of the Daniel Khalife trial has been the question: is he an amateurish fantasist who convinced himself he was playing a game of chess with spies, or a consequential character in the global world of espionage?

The answer, the police have said, is a bit of both. They believed Khalife to be inept in many regards. Khalife’s own barrister, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, said he was “hapless” and “sometimes bordering on the slapstick” – more Scooby-Doo than 007.