Supreme Court rules man's re-arrest after absconding from open prison was unlawful

A young man who absconded from an open prison and lived "in plain sight" for more than four years before re-arrest has won Supreme Court declarations that his re-arrest and subsequent detention to serve out the rest of his 16-month sentence were unlawful.

Mr Justice William McKechnie said, in the circumstances of Mark Finnegan’s case, and despite the seriousness of his absconding and remaining unlawfully at large, his re-arrest and detention was “unjust, oppressive and invidious”.