A 20-year-old has pleaded guilty to fleeing Prescoed Open Prison, where he was being held since stabbing a 17-year-old boy in April 2018, the South Wales Argus reports.

Newport Crown Court heard that Iestyn Raven sparked a manhunt when he (alongside a fellow prisoner) walked out of the jail in the early hours of 4 September.

According to prosecutor Emma Harris, Raven had escaped just a day after arguing with his girlfriend about an alleged infidelity. Julie Cox, mitigating, said Raven in fact left the jail because he feared he "might never see his father alive again."

Gwent Police found Raven 36 hours after the search began at a house in Stanfield Street, Cwm, Ebbw Vale.

"I will be amazed if you ever return to an open prison setting now," said Judge Geraint Walters, who presided over the case.

"One of the concerns today is the taking of Covid into prisons and you ran the risk of causing harm to other prisoners. That's an act of irresponsibility."

Four months have been added onto the seven-year custodial sentence Raven was handed after inflicting various wounds with a baseball bat and knife upon a victim he is thought to have known.