escape the clutches (or grip) of
Break free from the control or grasp of: thank heavens she’d escaped his clutches in time...- A man held hostage in a bedsit for more than 10 days was free last night after escaping the clutches of a gunman.
- Two sisters who escaped the clutches of the Nazis in wartime Czechoslovakia and then Hungary were living 85 miles apart in northern Israel, each not knowing that the other had survived.
- A quick-witted charity worker escaped the clutches of telephone tricksters following a warning from his residents' association.
See parent entry: escape