[4] Hinds grew up in a children's home following the death of his father, a thief who died while receiving ten lashes (from a cat o' 6) as a form of corporal punishment for armed robbery, before running away at the age of seven.
Two guards escorted him to the toilet, but when they removed his handcuffs Hinds bundled the men into the cubicle and snapped the padlock onto screw eyes that his accomplices had earlier fixed to the door.
While eluding Scotland Yard, Hinds continued to plead his innocence sending memorandums to British MPs and granting interviews and taped recordings to the press.
When invited to take part in a debate before the Polytechnic (now University of Westminster) Students' Union by President Owen Spencer-Thomas in 1967, he was confronted by another attempt to deprive him of his liberty.
During a drink in a nearby pub after the debate, he was kidnapped by six students for a rag week stunt and frogmarched along a couple of streets to a basement room in the college.