Responding to the news that three men have absconded from control orders, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said:

"This is yet another hammer blow for the increasingly discredited system of control orders.

"We have long argued that consigning people to a legal limbo beyond the reach of the courts is bad enough, but when these control orders are weakly enforced it is inevitable that attempts will be made to escape from them and some will succeed.

"This yet again strengthens our case for a wholesale review of control orders, which the Government must take up urgently in the upcoming review of terror legislation."