Fugitive robber avoids capture

Isaac Price has narrowly escaped from police twice this month

A violent man on the run from prison narrowly escaped being recaptured after a television appeal.

Isaac John Price, 41, from Stoke-on-Trent, is wanted for questioning in connection with three robberies of elderly people in Ludlow, Shropshire, in December and a similar incident in Bewdley in Worcestershire.

Police said 17 calls were received by detectives looking for Price after an appeal on BBC One's Crimewatch programme on Tuesday night.

One of the calls was from a Welsh police officer who said he had visited a house in Llanelli earlier in the day to investigate reports a fugitive was hiding there, only for the man to escape through the back door.

Swam away

Detectives said they were satisfied the man was Price, who has been on the run since he absconded from Sudbury Prison in Derbyshire in June.

He is believed to have hidden at the nearby home of an elderly woman after evading the police, before leaving without harming her.

West Mercia Police nearly captured Price in Ludlow earlier in the month, but they said he managed to escape by swimming across a swollen brook.

An 81-year-old woman remains in hospital after her leg was broken during one of the robberies police say Price committed.

Two of his victims, 82-year-old Bert Evans and 70-year-old Alwynne Tommey, recently made a public appeal for help to catch him.

More than 20 detectives are working on tracking Price down.