A drug dealer about to be released from his latest jail term walked out of an open prison after complaining that his home visits were being cancelled.
Now Paul Gairns will have to serve the rest of that sentence, as well as another six months for escaping from Thorn Cross open prison in Warrington.
After absconding from the category D prison for 42 days, he was caught driving a car in Manchester and sent back to a secure prison.
Manchester Crown Court heard that Gairns, 42, would now otherwise have been at home on licence.
Instead, he will have to serve a further 15 months in jail, after appearing at Manchester Crown Court on video link from Forest Bank prison in Salford.
Gairns was jailed for six years and six months in 2017 after he sold heroin to an undercover police officer nine times.
He was part of a large drugs ring which police said ‘tore apart communities and ruined lives’, with heroin and crack cocaine being sold.
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Jail sentences totalling almost 100 years were handed out to 29 drug peddlers, including Gairns, as part of GMP's year long Operation Rudow.
In the operation, officers went undercover to snare dealers in Newton Heath, Harpurhey, Ancoats and Miles Platting.
To catch one dealer, an officer posed as an Amazon delivery man and duped him into opening his front door.
During a search of Gairns’ flat, officers found a gun with 150 rounds of ammunition and around £2,000 cash.
On Tuesday, Manchester Crown Court heard that Gairns had been transferred to Thorn Cross in January to serve the remainder of this sentence.
A routine check was conducted, and Gairns was found to be missing.
It was 42 days later, on July 15 when police stopped a car which Gairns was driving, on Rochdale Road in Manchester.
Gairns has an extensive record for drug dealing.
He was jailed for six years in 2014 for conspiracy to supply cocaine; for nine years in 2003 for possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine; for four years in 2001 for the same offence; and in 1996 was sent to a young offender institution for possession with intent to supply cocaine.
A judge previously said Gairns was ‘determined to continue to lead a criminal lifestyle and profit from selling class A drugs regardless of what sentences are passed’.
Defending, Stuart Duke said Gairns had been at Thorn Cross without incident for five months.
He was frustrated that three homes visits had been cancelled to 'staff shortages', Mr Duke said.
Gairns also claimed that prisoners who had arrived after him were getting home visits, whereas he wasn't.
He said he was 'under pressure' from his family to return home.
"As he puts it, his head fell off," Mr Duke said.
Gairns 'caved in to the pressure' and decided to walk out of the prison and go home, the court was told.
Sentencing, Judge David Hernandez said: "If that is the case, that was no justification for doing what you did."
The judge ordered that Gairns serve the remaining nine months of his previous sentence, and a further six months after admitting an offence of escape. The sentences will run consecutively.
