Prisoner escaped from Thorn Cross to be with sick grandma (From This Is Cheshire)

Prisoner escaped from Thorn Cross to be with sick grandma

7:20am Friday 10th February 2012 in News By Vicki Stockman

A PRISONER serving a five-year sentence for causing death by dangerous driving escaped from Thorn Cross Young Offenders’ Institute after his grandmother was diagnosed with cancer.

Callum Connerty, aged 22, handed himself in on January 9, four months after escaping from Thorn Cross.

Warrington Crown Court heard on Monday how Connerty had been moved to the young offenders’ institute in March last year during his sentence for killing 17-year-old Jordan Campbell, a passenger in the car Connerty was driving when it collided with a van.

The two passengers in the van were left with serious injuries following the collision in Bootle in May 2008 but both survived.

He admitted driving the car to his victim’s mother but told the police he was hit while walking along the pavement that he had been in the back of the vehicle but was unable to remember which of his friends was driving.

It was only when police told his victim’s mother they did not have evidence to charge anyone that he confessed.

Connerty was jailed in February 2010. But while serving his sentence he found out his grandmother had cancer, the court heard.

On August 22 he was spotted running away from the open institution across a field. Connerty finally turned himself in after spending Christmas with his family.

David Jones, prosecuting, said: “The defendant handed himself in at St Anne Police Station in Liverpool. He told police he had absconded from prison four months ago.

“His grandmother was ill and his reasons were that he would not be released for visits or the funeral.”

Judge Roger Dutton sentenced him to four months to run concurrently alongside his remaining original sentence.