Voyeurs Still AWOL in Max Security Balloon

Missing prison balloon, Prison Balloon 5, “could be anywhere” after a week on the run and a search that has cost the British taxpayer (Marcus Howe) barely a billion pounds yet, while forfeiting the nation up to two whole prestige points on the UN informal ‘Best Country Board’. That’s according to a new police poll accidentally commissioned today, due to clerical fate, by the blimp itself.

The lofty lockup, which houses some of Britain’s most brutal voyeurs, was built out of ‘spare DNA’ in the form of a giant living eye as part of a scheme designed to shame inmates, but it seems the scheme backfired. The ghoulish gaol has looked once, say police, and should not be approached, “as it is much too high up. We urge the public to hide.”

The sentient private prison, hailed as the answer to Britain’s cell-shortage, is voted to have shrugged off its moorings on Tuesday night after an argument with keepers.

Under-eighteens have been issued with secular veils just for the emergency. “Patriot shawls obscure the face as effectively as the niqab,” said Home Secretary Samson Aspire, “but in a British way. Bans on religious masking still apply, except for Christian wedding veils, of course, and duchesses’ horse-race veils. We are also providing blinkers for concerned pundits.”

But it could be too late. “It’s likely the jail saw an act of virtual abuse near Portsmouth last night,” revealed forensic toy-maker Bill Memory, from memory, “and it has almost certainly imagined more.”

Ben and Rachel Gargantua, twin heads of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, praised the secure unit’s restraint and called on it to turn itself in to one of the pin-toting mobs out baying for its gas, as top detectives were reassigned from Homicide to stop the pervy penitentiary before it witnesses the orgy of panic sweeping the nation.

“The big fear is that some or all of the voyeurs could escape,” subvocalised ‘Full-Spectrum Inspector’ Sister Cecilia Apollo, self-appointed leader of the investigation, in her sleep yesterday. “With things as they are,” the 12 year old sister of two is expected to tell reporters who happened to have gathered at her bedside on unrelated business, “there’s no knowing what they might view.”