Manhunt launched after prisoner forces way out of south-east London medical unit
Police have launched an urgent search after a prisoner forced his way out of a medical facility in south-east London and disappeared into the wider London area. Anthony Lloyd, 38, was last seen at about 16:10 BST on Friday leaving a unit in Lewisham and heading towards Catford, with officers warning that he may pose a risk to himself and to the public.
The case turns on a familiar but difficult problem in custodial medicine: patients in secure or semi-secure healthcare settings may still present an escape risk even when they are under formal supervision. Once that boundary is breached, the clinical setting quickly becomes a public safety issue, and the response shifts from treatment oversight to urgent containment and search. Police said the priority is to find him and return him to custody.
He is described as white, about 5ft 8in tall, of medium build, with short dark hair. At the time he was last seen, he was wearing a grey-blue T-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and white trainers. Officers have urged the public not to approach him and to call 999 immediately if he is seen.
A single escape can pull together several strands of risk at once: the vulnerability of the individual, the potential for further harm, and the strain placed on units that are expected to balance healthcare access with security. In this case, police have not publicly detailed why Lloyd was in the medical unit, but they have made clear that concern about his safety sits alongside concern for the safety of others.
Police say Lloyd may be anywhere in London
Det Supt Melanie Pressley, who is leading the search, said officers were carrying out “various significant inquiries” to locate him and bring him back into custody. The language reflects the seriousness of the search rather than any confirmed sighting after his departure from Lewisham.
Police said Lloyd could be anywhere in London, but also noted links to Surrey, Sussex, the Thames Valley, Hampshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Merseyside. Those geographic connections widen the search picture without narrowing the immediate operational response, which remains focused on the most recent confirmed sighting in south-east London.
He was jailed for 12 months in 2025 for assault occasioning actual bodily harm after an incident in Nottinghamshire involving three emergency workers. Police said he had been moved from prison to the Lewisham facility in September. That background matters because people held in custody or transferred to medical settings may have complex behavioural, physical, or psychiatric needs, and those needs do not remove the possibility of violence or self-harm when they are uncontained.
The warning to the public is unambiguous. Officers say he poses a risk both to himself and to others, and anyone who sees him should not intervene directly. Instead, police want immediate contact through emergency services so trained officers can respond with the appropriate safeguards in place.
Security, custody, and the medical unit boundary
Escapes from medical facilities are rare compared with the volume of routine movement in and out of secure care, but when they happen the consequences can be immediate. A patient who is under custody and receiving medical support may be in a physically fragile state, behaviourally unstable, or both. If that person leaves the unit unsupervised, the response must account for self-harm risk, public safety, and the possibility of sudden confrontation if approached by civilians.
Lewisham now sits at the center of a search operation stretching across multiple police contacts and jurisdictions. The practical challenge is straightforward and severe: a person last seen at a specific time and place can move quickly across a dense city, especially when officers have only a limited description and a warning to the public rather than a confirmed location.
For people in the area, the advice is simple and direct. Do not approach him. Call 999 if he is seen. Police said anyone with information should contact the Met as a matter of urgency.
This case is a reminder that medical detention and criminal custody can overlap in ways that leave frontline teams dealing with both care and containment. When that balance fails, the result is not only a missing prisoner; it is a rapid escalation from a local unit to a citywide manhunt.