A FULL scale search, with police sniffer dogs and a helicopter, was mounted after a prisoner escaped from HMP Hewell Grange on Friday, writes Becky Procter.

The recovery operation began around 10.30am when a Willenhall man fled from the Tardebigge open jail across fields.

Prison staff immediately alerted the police who scrambled a helicopter.

But officers faced difficulty due to the foot and mouth crisis and were forced to disinfect themselves before entering open farm land in an attempt to stop the highly contagious disease from spreading.

A police spokesman said: "There were complications because of the current situation with foot and mouth and going across farm land."

The prisoner was eventually discovered in the Brockhill area running back in the direction of the prison.

The police spokesman said: "The helicopter saw him in a field on a bank and police officers on foot captured him."

The prisoner was arrested for being unlawfully at large and returned to Blakenhurst in Tardebigge, a category B secure prison.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "If a prisoner absconds from an open prison he will be returned to closed conditions when he is recaptured.

"A lot of trust is put in category d prisoners in an open jail. We can see whether they can be trusted."