A PENSIONER serving a life sentence for a brutal knifepoint rape visited Carlisle and Kendal after absconding while on day-release.

Colin Hogben, 73, was meant to return to Leyhill Prison in South Gloucestershire at 4pm on June 23 – but instead he took a bus to Birmingham before then travelling to Newcastle, from where he boarded a train for Carlisle.

He was caught in Kendal two days after he was supposed to be back in jail. Hogben’s disappearance prompted a national appeal for information about his whereabouts, with police warning that he was not to be approached.

Prosecutor Beccy McGregor told Carlisle Crown Court that police officers found Hogben at 9.30am on June 25 as he used his walking frame to make his way through Kendal town centre. In the bag attached to his walker device, there was a tent.

When stopped by the officers, he commented that he knew he would be in trouble, Miss McGregor told the court. “He fully admitted the offence in his interview,” said the prosecutor.

“He said he wanted to prove to the authorities that he could get around independently due to the fact that he had a Parole Board hearing coming up in October.”

Hogben had 11 offences on his criminal record, the most serious of which was the knife-point rape of a sex worker on November 18, 1994 – the offence for which he was given a life sentence.

Recorder Tony Hawks described the case as “rather sad.” He told the defendant, who appeared before the court via a video link from his prison: “You are now in your 70s.

“You have spent the last nearly 30 years of your life in prison, serving a life sentence… You were given the opportunity to leave prison on licence, with the condition that you returned, but you didn’t.

“You were unlawfully at large for a couple of days.” The judge said that on one level he could understand how Hogben felt when released and his desire to show that he could travel independently.

But the judge said: “It’s an extremely serious matter.

“It goes without saying that if you are given licence to go out on your own, unaccompanied, in the community, you are put on trust and that system can’t work if you betray that trust, whatever reason you have.”

The offence had to be marked with a prison term, though it would be served concurrently to the continuing life sentence.

The judge imposed four months jail. As the hearing ended, Hogben responded with the words: “Thank you, sir.”