Killer royal aide Jane Andrews back in custody
A former royal aide on the run from prison for more than two days was back in police custody today after being found near the jail, police said.
Jane Andrews, who was jailed for life after bludgeoning and stabbing a man who refused to marry her, was found safe and well in the Maidstone area of Kent in the early hours of today.
A large search was launched for the 42-year-old former dresser to the Duchess of York after she fled from East Sutton Park open prison near Maidstone on Sunday evening.
Kent Police said: "Police have located missing person Jane Andrews safe and well and she has been taken into police custody.
"She was found in the Maidstone area in the early hours of this morning."
The force did not give out any further details of how she came to be found.
Andrews was moved to East Sutton Park prison on November 18 and took a paracetamol overdose last week for which she needed hospital treatment.
Police held a press conference yesterday at which they spoke of concern for her safety, adding there was nothing to suggest she posed a threat to the public.
But Assistant Chief Constable Andy Adams reminded people that "she was convicted of murder".
Andrews, who worked for the Duchess of York for nine years until 1997, was convicted in 2001 of murdering wealthy businessman Mr Cressman at the house they shared in Fulham, south-west London.
She was ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years in jail after a jury at the Old Bailey accepted the prosecution case that she killed him in revenge because he refused to marry her.
Mr Adams said yesterday police were dealing with two incidents relating to one individual - concern for her welfare and somebody unlawfully at large.
He added that police were examining a range of inquiries relating to possible places she might frequent and added she had links to London and Grimsby.
The brother of murdered Mr Cressman demanded that Justice Secretary Jack Straw should consider resigning after Andrews absconded.
Rick Cressman, 58, said it was due to "complete and utter incompetence" in Mr Straw's department that Andrews managed to flee.
He insisted she should have been in a higher security prison.
Mr Cressman, the owner of a hotel near Solihull, said: "Andrews should never have been placed in an open prison in the first place. She has never shown any remorse to my family at all.
"Someone who has killed someone and shown themselves to be so devious and manipulative should never have been allowed to be in an open prison.
"When she's in an open prison she then supposedly tries to commit suicide by taking an overdose, yet when she's back she doesn't appear to have been given any special attention.
"It's disgraceful. I think if I was Jack Straw I would be thinking of resigning."
