John McVicar

John Roger McVicar (21 March 1940 – 6 September 2022) was a British journalist and convicted one-time armed robber who escaped from prison.

Career As a criminal McVicar's criminal career began in his teens with shop break-ins and car thefts. In 1956, at the age of 16, while awaiting trial, he escaped from a remand home for young offenders, before being sentenced to two years Borstal training. On his release he graduated to armed robber. In 1964 he was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison. Despite being incarcerated in HM Prison Parkhurst, which was then a top security jail on the Isle of Wight,

Whilst on the run, McVicar attempted to rob an armoured security van, was recaptured, charged with more offences and sentenced to another 15 years in prison consecutive to the eight he was already serving.

As a journalist Telling his story During his imprisonment for his failed attempt to rob an armed money transfer vehicle (as a fugitive), McVicar began his study for a postgraduate degree at the University of Leicester, which he completed upon his release. In addition, McVicar covertly wrote his autobiography, McVicar by Himself. After its publishing, he co-scripted the biographical film McVicar with Tom Clegg who also directed. Roger Daltrey (lead singer of The Who) played the title role. The film co-starred Adam Faith.

According to McVicar's foreword to the revised edition of McVicar by Himself (published by Artnik in 2002), Daltrey's interest in breaking into the film industry as a romantic lead heavily compromised the film's depiction of his relationship with McVicar's then-wife, Sheila Wilshire. He maintained that his relationship with Wilshire was always more related to convenience after she gave birth to his son. Wilshire was arrested for housing a fugitive while McVicar was on the run from his escape from Durham Prison.

Journalism In the 1980s McVicar embarked upon a career in journalism, with work published in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Punch, the New Statesman, and Time Out. He was frequently called upon to comment on crime and punishment matters, such as the 1990 HM Prison Strangeways riots, in Manchester. The son of shopkeepers, George and Diane McVicar, in 1965 he fathered a son with his girlfriend, Shirley Wilshire, while he was on the run from HMP Parkhurst. Shirley and McVicar married in 1972, but she divorced him before his final release from prison in 1978. His son was estranged from his father but followed in his criminal footsteps, taking up armed robbery and prison escapes.

In 2002, John McVicar married Countess Valentina Artsrunik at the Russian Orthodox Church in Knightsbridge, London. Although the couple ran a publishing business and together travelled widely, their marriage was strained and they lived apart. At the time of his death McVicar was living in a caravan in Althorne, Maldon, Essex.