'Jihadi John' suspect Mohammed Emwazi 'escaped Britain in back of a lorry'

Reports say Emwazi escaped at a time when security was focused on London Olympics

'Jihadi John’ suspect Mohammed Emwazi reportedly escaped Britain by hiding in the back of a freight lorry on a Channel ferry, at a time when “low-level” terror suspects were not being properly monitored as efforts were focused on securing the London Olympics.

Emwazi is believed to have fled the UK early in 2013 to Turkey, where he then crossed over into Syria via a route commonly used by illegal immigrants, The Times reports.

It says his escape came at a time when efforts to track so-called 'peripherals' were abandoned as MI5 and British police concentrated on the 2012 Olympic Games.

The operation to secure the Games reportedly created a “hangover” into 2013, when Emwazi managed to flee undetected. Police and security services responded to these alleged gaps by forming a unit called Project Danube, which was tasked with monitoring low- priority suspects who might become “lone wolf” attackers.

Emwazi was unmasked in reports last week as the infamous British Isis militant who appeared in a number of videos showing the beheading of journalists and aid workers.

The University of Westminster graduate had been known to MI5 and was on the Home Office Warnings Index, which prevented him from leaving the country.

Emwazi’s parents claimed this week that there is “no proof” their son is Jihadi John, with his father saying: “There is no proof that the man shown in the videos and photographs is my son, as the media has reported in the last few days.”

The Home Office said it could not comment on matters of security.