After the file in the cake, a new way to escape jail: a fax from the grocer

The plan to spring Timothy Rouse from jail must have seemed like a long shot. The 19-year-old had been assessed by the US authorities as highly dangerous. The prison, in La Grange, Kentucky, was suitably secure.

It was therefore the optimist among Rouse's associates who had the simple idea of faxing the prison authorities from a local grocery store with bogus instructions that "demanded" he be released. Only an optimist might have believed officials would free their friend on the basis of an absurdly fabricated decree from the state's highest court: a document with no letterhead and one littered with spelling and grammatical mistakes.

Rouse, who was held on charges of burglary, robbery, theft and assault, walked from jail and was not recaptured for another fortnight; the time it took the authorities to realise their mistake. Hardly a criminal mastermind, he was staying at his mother's house when eight police officers arrived.

Prison officials concede that the faked letter did bear the fax mark of a grocery store but said no one would have noticed because security policies do not require the sources of faxes to be traced. Greg Taylor, the facility's director, said: "It's not part of a routine check, but certainly, in hindsight, that would perhaps have caused somebody to ask a question."

He said the letter itself would not automatically arouse suspicion because misspelling was commonplace in court documents.