A burglar from Runcorn handed himself in after he absconded from HMP Kirkham in Lancashire.
Mark Roscaleer, 26, gave up life on the run last Thursday following a police appeal to the public for information.
Officers had delivered seven notices to his known associates, warning them that they would be prosecuted if they were found to be harbouring the offender.
Roscaleer was serving time seven years and four months for a terrifying raid on an Ellesmere Port pub in 2012 in which a court heard he threatened to ‘smash’ a victim’s skull with a hammer and made off, along with his accomplice, with £6,300.
A Ministry Of Justice (MOJ) spokeswoman said the inmate absconded from prison on Monday, September 28, and that Lancashire police had also been looking for him.
She added that absconsions have fallen by 75% in the last 10 years but that the MOJ still takes them seriously.
The spokeswoman said: “Offenders who abscond are returned to closed prison conditions.
“Open prisons provide the most effective means of making sure that risk-assessed prisoners are tested in the community before they are released.
“This is to reduce their chances of reoffending upon release.
“Prisoners are not automatically transferred to open conditions.
“Offenders may transfer only where thorough consideration of the case shows that it is safe to do so.
“Indeterminate sentence prisoners may transfer only after a recommendation by the parole board.
“All prisoners are risk assessed prior to being allowed to go to open prisons.
“The risk assessments include both the risk of serious harm they may cause and their risk of absconding.”
