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| Life sentence prisoner at large | |
| (about 16 hours later) | |
| A prisoner serving a life sentence who absconded while attending a pre-release training course remains at large. | |
| Mark Thomas Clarke, 40, who was attending a course at Nutts Corner, County Antrim, fled on Tuesday. | |
| Clarke was jailed in 1996 for kidnapping and attempted rape and given a minimum nine-and-a-half year tariff. | |
| He was in the third stage of a pre-release programme monitored by the Prison Service. The Prison Officers' Association said he would be caught. | |
| Its Chairman Finlay Spratt said: "When he is eventually arrested he will then be returned to a closed facility, he will be returned back to Maghaberry. | |
| "All this prisoner has managed to do is actually jeopardise his release. | |
| "He has put back his release, he has actually broken trust that was placed in him by the parole board which recommended that he should be facilitated in this scheme." | |
| Clarke had recently progressed to "living in the community", under Prison Service supervision. | |
| A Prison Service statement said: "The protection of the public is paramount and the Prison Service are working closely with our colleagues in the Police Service of Northern Ireland to apprehend the prisoner." | |
| Three other prisoners are currently at large in Northern Ireland, according to the Prison Service website. |