Police launch appeal to find on-the-run killer Robert Donovan - four years after he absconded from prison

 
Convicted killer: Robert Donovan
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Police were criticised today for appealing for help to catch a convicted killer - four years after he went on the run from an open prison.

Sussex Police issued the plea to the public yesterday to catch Robert Donovan who was convicted of stabbing to death a West End theatre manager on Hungerford Bridge in London.

Donovan, 57, was jailed indefinitely at the Old Bailey in December 1974 for the murder of Palladium stage manager Edwin Thornley.

The court heard Donovan’s brother Patrick, who was 19 at the time, posed as a rent boy to lure Mr Thornley. The theatre manager was robbed before Donovan, who was 17, stabbed him in the neck with a flick knife.

Donovan had been in an open prison for a year before he absconded from the West Sussex jail in June 2010.

He is thought to have links to London and Portsmouth and may be using the alias David Green.

PC Steve Reed, of Sussex Police, said: "We have been looking for Donovan for several years without success which suggests he has left Sussex and could be elsewhere in the country.”

Tory MP Philip Davies told the Daily Mail: “It is quite extraordinary that this is only just coming to light now. The public should be informed straight away.”

The incident comes after it emerged that murderer David Richards went on the run for nine years from an open jail in Derbyshire police wihtout a police manhunt.

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