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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Fugitive 'Skull Cracker' admits raid | Fugitive 'Skull Cracker' admits raid |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A man nicknamed the "Skull Cracker" after a string of robberies has admitted three new offences while he was on the run from an open prison. | |
| Michael Wheatley, 55, pleaded guilty at Guildford Crown Court to the charges including a £18,350 robbery at a Surrey building society. | |
| He was also charged with possessing a firearm and being unlawfully at large. | |
| Wheatley was arrested in Tower Hamlets, east London, after the raid on Chelsea Building Society in Sunbury on 7 May. | |
| He appeared via video link from Belmarsh prison. | |
| Full review | |
| He was serving a life sentence at Standford Hill prison on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, when he was granted day release and failed to return on 3 May. | |
| Wheatley, who was on the run for five days, was given 13 life sentences in 2002 for raids on banks and building societies. | |
| He earned his nickname for using an imitation handgun as a blunt weapon to hit people - including a 73-year-old woman - during his robberies. | |
| He had gone on the run twice in the past and each time staged a series of violent robberies before being caught and re-jailed. | |
| His failure to return to Standford Hill sparked a storm of protest. | |
| Conservative backbencher Philip Davies, MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, said whoever had allowed him out of prison was "a berk" | |
| Prisons minister Jeremy Wright later said there would be a full review of the release on temporary licence process. |