The double felon is back in prison just weeks after being released

A double murderer is back in prison just weeks after being released.

Darren Pilkington, 41, has spent much of the past two decades behind bars. He was jailed for manslaughter in 2006 after he pushed his girlfriend Carly Fairhurst, 19, down the stairs during a night out at a house in Higher Ince, Wigan.

Pilkington left her with critical injuries for 12 hours before calling for an ambulance. Carly never recovered and died the following week.

READ MORE: He was supposed to keep kids safe but used his position to groom and rape a teenage girl

READ MORE: Road closed after car ‘rolls onto roof’ in crash

The 2006 offense was Pilkington’s second manslaughter conviction. He was jailed in 2001, aged 15, for beating 30-year-old Paul Akister to death outside a pub in Hindley.

The MEN reports that Pilkington was released from prison earlier this year. He spent 18 years in high-security prisons for failing to comply with strict release conditions.

When he was allowed to stay in an open prison in 2022, he ran away and ran for three days. Despite numerous offences, earlier this year the Parole Board recommended he leave prison and live in a hostel on bail, monitored with an electronic tag and under a curfew.

Carly’s parents, Trevor and Sheila Fairhurst, said at the time they were “disgusted” by the Parole Board’s decision. Now just six weeks later, Pilkington is back in jail after again breaching his license conditions.

A spokesman for HM Prison and Probation Service said: “Offenders released on license are subject to strict conditions and we do not hesitate to recall them into custody if they break the rules.”

Pilkington, who now goes by the name Darren Carr, was given a prison sentence for public protection (PPI) after being jailed for Carly’s death. This meant he only had to serve a minimum sentence of just over three years before he could start repeatedly trying to prove himself fit for release.

Following earlier decisions to release Pilkington into the community, he was returned to prisons for breaching the terms of his licences.

In 2022, he escaped from Kirkham Open Prison and was on the run for three days before being captured in Horwich. This was close to an exclusion zone surrounding the borough of Wigan, where Carly’s parents still live, a no-go zone.

A parole hearing earlier this year ruled he should be released on licence, subject to strict conditions. These included living at a designated address, staying out of the exclusion zone, staying on the right side of the law and being subject to increased surveillance, including curfews and electronic tracking.

Against him, the hearing heard there were a number of risk factors in his past. These included his attitudes towards violence and crime, his choice of a negative peer group, alcohol and drug abuse, communication difficulties and a generally unstable lifestyle.

The board was also told that since his last incarceration his behavior had been “generally good, that he had a reliable job in prison and that he had obtained a vocational qualification”. And they also heard that “there was no evidence of any violent behavior.”

He also completed papers on alcohol, relapse prevention and managing boredom and stress, they were told. And he remained in a specialist facility for those committed to recovering from addictions and was considered to have developed a good level of understanding of the risks associated with drug use.

Don’t miss the biggest and breaking stories by subscribing to the Echo Daily newsletter here