CONVICTED child killer John Clifford, who went on the run in the Republic for over a week last September, was sentenced yesterday to a further three months behind bars.
Belfast Crown Court Judge David McFarland told the 57-year-old that the sentence would send a message to prisoners who abscond, that they "must realise they run a real risk" of further jail time.
Clifford, jailed in January 1989 for the rape and murder the previous year of his eight-year-old niece Sue Ellen Clifford, will serve the extra time at the end of the sentence he is currently serving for unrelated sex offences dating back to the 1980s.
Prosecution lawyer Simon Jenkings said Clifford, was released from Burren House on the Crumlin Road, on Sunday September 2, last year, for an appointment which he never kept.
Instead he was captured on CCTV boarding a train to Dublin and Gardaí were alerted.
Within a week he contacted Gardaí in the Wicklow area and agreed to return north where he was arrested in Newry by waiting PSNI officers.
In May 2017 Clifford had been moved to the Burren House unit, a facility housing 22 inmates nearing the end of their sentences, giving them the opportunity of daily unsupervised leave within the community, subject to certain conditions.
Clifford had previously been released in 2004, with his location kept a secret, but was sent back to prison after breaching the terms of his licensed parole.
