AN inmate who failed to return to an open prison after being allowed out to pick up litter is back behind bars.

Barry Foster – serving five years for having a sawn-off shotgun, one of 196 offences on his record – was at large for more than a fortnight.

A court heard how he visited his grandmother's grave, and stayed with his family before handing himself in at a police station.

Foster had days added to his sentence by prison bosses, and was given an extra six months by a judge on Tuesday.

His barrister, Stephen Constantine, told Teesside Crown Court that the 39-year-old made a spur of the moment decision to abscond.

He was clearing up in woodland surrounding HMP Kirklevington, near Yarm, called a taxi and travelled 25 miles to his home town of Hartlepool.

Mr Constantine said he had been moved to the Category C jail from HMP Durham and told unless he stopped his methadone medication – a heroin substitute – he would be taken back to a closed prison.

He had also been denied a request to go to his grandmother's funeral, said Mr Constantine – and both blows led to his "foolish and impulsive" decision.

The barrister said Foster had been trusted to leave Kirklevington seven times before his February disappearance, and had always gone back.

Judge Simon Hickey told him: "You absconded yourself from prison for 15 days, but, significantly, you did not commit any further offences, and you came to your senses and handed yourself in."

Foster, formerly of Oxford Road, Hartlepool, admitted a charge of being a temporarily released prisoner unlawfully at large.