What happens to prisoners who abscond?
They are automatically sent back to a closed prison and are unlikely to be readmitted. They can also receive an additional jail sentence of up to 12 months. A rogues’ gallery of absconders IT EMERGED last month that three prisoners – John Cartledge , Dennis Smyth and Simon Lister – had gone on the run from Castle Huntly prison. All three were recaptured within days. Cartledge, 41, was jailed for eight years in May 2004 after pleading guilty to assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement and to the danger of life. Smyth, 38, a convicted housebreaker, was also granted home leave but failed to return. Simon Lister, a 28-year-old inmate at the open prison in Noranside, Angus, also absconded. Lister, right, a former soldier from Penicuik, was given a seven-year jail term at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2004 after being convicted of a series of assaults and robberies on pensioners. Last November, a sheriff ruled that the killing of a woman by a prisoner on unsupervised leave from Cas
