A prisoner who absconded from jail earlier this month is back behind bars after handing himself in.

Convicted burglar Dean Doyle disappeared from Thorn Cross Prison in Warrington, Cheshire, on Thursday, August 15.

Police made a public appeal to help find him and advised people not to approach him, but to call 999 if they saw him.

Officers correctly thought he was back in his home city of Bradford.

Doyle was part of a Bradford-based gang that stole £4 million of luxury cars in raids across the North of England, including from homes in Bingley, Cleckheaton, Leeds, Wetherby and York.

The 32-year-old, then of Holme Wood, was one of 14 men – including five from Bradford – involved in the illegal trade when high-end cars such as BMWs and Range Rovers were stolen after their keys were taken from home.

Documents and registration plates were forged and the vehicles were eventually sold on to unsuspecting customers.

Doyle was jailed for six years in December 2010 and was said to have stolen cars worth a total of £142,000. He and two others were responsible for selling the cars on to a traveller who acted as the ‘middle man’.

In court at the time, Doyle was described as a “career criminal” but it was said he showed remorse for what he had done.

The crime gang were eventually brought to justice during a three-day police operation across six police forces, code named Operation Yankee, which led to 24 arrests in April 2010.

Yesterday Doyle, who is serving a six-year sentence for burglary, handed himself in to officers at Trafalgar House Police Station at 11pm.

A police spokesman said: “He was re-arrested and will be sent back to Cheshire.”

Thorn Cross is an open institution on the site of a former Royal Naval Air Station. Prisoners can be moved there when they have fewer than two years left to serve and are in single rooms with their own key.

e-mail: julie.tickner@telegraphandargus.co.uk