An Oldham murderer who killed another inmate over a piece of birthday cake is on the run today after vanishing whilst on home leave from jail.
Maurice Travis, 33, was serving life for stabbing another inmate to death – but had been granted ‘temporary licence’ ahead of being paroled after serving almost 16 years of his sentence.
He was last seen on Wednesday in the Werneth area of Oldham where his family used to live.
Despite his criminal history, police say is not believed to be ”significant” threat to the public – although the public are warned not to approach him.
Travis also formed a murderous ‘blood bond’ behind bars with a notorious racist killer, dubbed: ‘The Madman’.
Travis was serving five months for robbery in a young offender institution when he met and shared a cell with psychopath Robert Stewart – a skinhead with a cross and the words RIP tattooed on his forehead who hero-worshipped Stephen Lawrence’s killers.
He and Stewart would ‘incite’ each other with violent fantasies and later Travis killed fellow inmate lan Averall, 17, in jail during a row over a piece of birthday cake.
After the killing Travis and Stewart swapped letters and phone calls talking about carrying out a further murder – and Stewart later beat an Asian cellmate to death as he lay sleeping in their cell.
During a statement to a public inquiry, Travis claimed he and Stewart were going to kill Averall together and added: ”He follows me. It’s like he worships everything I do.
”I know it wouldn’t be long before he killed somebody. There was a situation when we spoke on the telephone or wrote and I suggested to him that he killed his padmate.
”Eventually he informed me he was in a pad with a Paki. I just told him to do it to him and he did it.
“I am prepared to take some of the blame for this.”
Today, Greater Manchester Police Det Ch Insp Mike Mangan said: “While we do not believe Travis presents a significant threat to the public, he is unlawfully at large and he needs to be returned to prison.
“I would ask anyone with information about where he currently is, has been or could be heading contacts us in confidence.”
Travis is white, 5ft 9in tall and has short cropped brown hair. He was wearing black jeans, black jacket with white motif on top of left shoulder and white trainers. He has links to the Tameside, Oldham and Salford areas.
Travis and Stewart had originally been cellmates at Hindley Young Offender Institute in Wigan in the 1990s where they admitted started fires at the jail because they thought it was ‘funny.’
Stewart was said to have become ‘obsessed’ with Travis and in 1997 a nurse overheard the pair talking to each other about their violent fantasies.
She was so shocked that she wrote a security report warning that they could ‘endanger their own lives and possibly others’, but the report was never acted upon.
On June 23 1998 – after they were transferred to Stoke Heath in Market Drayton, Shropshire – Travis, then 18, stabbed inmate lan Averall on his 17th birthday during a cookery class.
It was believed Stewart planned the killing, talking of cutting convicted burglar Averall’s throat. But although he was arrested on suspicion of murder – and even handed Travis the murder weapon – he was not charged.
It emerged the fatal stabbing happened shortly after Averall had taunted Travis, telling him he could not have a piece of his birthday cake, which he had been prepared during a lesson.
Averall bled to death after being stabbed three times with a knife, which Travis had been using to chop onions. Travis was later given life in jail after he admitted murder.
After the killing, Stewart wrote a letter for Travis saying: ”What’s done is done. Everyone thinks am next. Let’s wait and see. If I get out in four weeks, it could be the first murder of the millennium! Ha ha.”
Shortly into 2000, following the sending of this letter, Stewart was transferred to Feltham young offender institute in connection with a separate trial. He was later moved into the same cell as Zahid Mubarek.
On March 21, Stewart battered Zahid, 20, with a table leg in the middle of the night.
Zahid, a first-time petty crime offender, had been expecting to be released the following morning.
Police seized another letter sent by Stewart to Travis which read: “After all dat bisness, I got the orderly job in the cooking class. Handling knives all day. Ha! Ha!”
Stewart, now 33, was jailed for life in November 2000 for Zahid’s murder and has been held in Woodhill Category A prison.
A public inquiry later said prison chiefs missed 14 chances to save Zahid and seemed ‘oblivious to the danger’ of placing psychopath Stewart in the same cell as the 19-year-old.
According to the Commission for Racial Equality’s report on the murder, one prisoner said of Stewart: “I called him Madman. Other prisoners had names for him like Sicko.”
