A murderer is on the run after giving prison guards the slip and escaping from hospital, police said.
Lee Nevins, 24, who is serving a minimum 17-year sentence at the top security Frankland Prison in Durham, escaped while being treated at Sunderland Royal Hospital yesterday afternoon.
A major police search is now under way to find him after he vanished from the hospital.
Nevins was jailed for the murder of a disabled man on Gateshead's Leam Lane Estate, in April 2006.
Nevins, who has previous convictions for violence, and Mark Lang, both from Gateshead, were found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court of the murder of 20-year-old Lee Jobling.
The drunken pair gate-crashed a party and taunted Mr Jobling, who had been left with a limp and a brain injury after falling from a bridge in 2001.
They attacked him, ignoring his pleas for mercy, leaving him blood-soaked and fatally injured.
The court heard that as he struggled for breath and started grunting, they began singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm. Mr Jobling died 19 days later.
Superintendent Janet Richards, of Northumbria Police, said: "We would ask the public to be vigilant. If anyone recognises this man and has any idea of his whereabouts they should ring 999 straightaway."
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