A WOMAN prisoner who escaped from hospital by jumping from a window was jailed again yesterday.

Claire Lancaster, 28, was taken to Middlesbrough General Hospital in handcuffs after she told police on her arrest that she had taken a drugs overdose.

Nigel Wray, prosecuting, said the handcuffs were removed so she could be x-rayed, and that hospital staff had refused to let a police officer stay with her.

Lancaster escaped through a small window in a dressing cubicle. She was arrested a week later when she sold stolen clothing to a second-hand shop being run by an undercover police team, Teesside Crown Court was told.

She told police: "I saw the window, so I just jumped out of it."

Robin Turton, in mitigation, said Lancaster escaped because she had not seen her six-year-old child for six months.

Lancaster, of Laurel Avenue, Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, was jailed for six months after she pleaded guilty to two thefts and escaping in December and February.