Nikolas Ioannou, with the repatriation of his family from Jordan, attended the primary school of Kaimaklion, graduated from the Pancypriot High School of Nicosia in 1955 and when he was killed he was a student at the London Polytechnic, where he studied Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering. He had joined EOKA from the beginning of the Struggle together with his mother and siblings. He was fatherless. Their house was used as a base for attacks by the first Nicosia execution team and as a shelter for hiding wanted persons, including the hero Michalakis Karaolis.

In London, Nikolas was connected with the Cypriot National Office and the British Cypriot National Student Union, extending his campaigning action to planning the escape of political convicts, EOKA fighters, who were held in Warmwood Scraps prisons in London and Wakefield in Yorkshire, between whose brother George was also. The whole plan involved co-operation with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and was to be carried out in the first fortnight of August 1958. IRA men would, after their escape, accompany the EOKA men along with IRA prisoners to Ireland, where they would be trained with the aim of their secret repatriation to continue their activity in the ranks of EOKA in Cyprus.

The plan appears to have been brought to the attention of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, who were monitoring his every move. On 17 July 1958 he returned to Manchester Airport, where he had left his motorbike, from his second visit to Dublin. From Manchester Nicholas set off on his motorbike for London, but on the way he was run over near Panbury by a lorry driven by a guard from Wakefield Prison. Before leaving for Dublin he had told his sister Irene Newman, a resident of London, that everything was ready for the escape. Based on this plan, Seamus Murphy, an Irish collaborator of the Cypriot convicts, a member of the IRA, later escaped from Wakefield prisons.