Victim's family "elated" after police capture fugitive Wigan double killer in neighbouring Bolton

Darren Pilkington is now back in custody, police have informed the family of his second victim Carly Fairhurst.

The teenager’s parents, Trevor and Sheila, said they were “elated” after learning that the 39-year-old is now safely behind bars again.

Pilkington was arrested in Horwich, just over the Wigan border, on the morning of Saturday May 28.

A man and a woman have also been detained on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Pilkington went missing from Kirkham open prison, only 30 miles from the borough where he committed his crimes, on the evening of Wednesday May 25, and police later issued an appeal for help in tracking him down, asking anyone who spotted him to ring 999.

He has served two sentences for manslaughter, firstly for killing his friend Paul Akister in Hindley in 2000 and then his 19-year-old girlfiend Carly in 2006.

Since his release from that second term in 2016, he has been in and out of prison for numerous breaches of the terms of his licence putting the Fairhursts through an “endless cycle” of torment by their having to attend and submit victim impact statements to innumerable parole hearings.

However, news of Pilkington’s recapture gave the couple an inevitable lift today.

Mr Fairhurst said: “We received a phone call from the police at 10.30am to say he had been recaptured. We are elated.

"It’s good to know that he will now surely be sent back to a more secure prison. And he should stay there.”