A CONVICTED murderer was still at large yesterday, two days after giving a prison warder the slip during an outing to a North-East city.

Henry William Spedding, 43, was visiting Newcastle in preparation for his release from Acklington Prison, Northumberland, after 24 years behind bars. He fled from the Haymarket bus station at 4.15pm, on Monday.

Spedding, originally from Cumbria, murdered his 78-year-old grandfather William Wood on Christmas Eve, 1975.

He is not considered a risk to the public