A PRISONER who absconded from Castle Huntly to attend his father’s funeral was yesterday jailed for a further three months.

Herbert Hunter (30) admitted walking out of the Longforgan prison last Friday after he was refused permission to go to the funeral in Stranraer because he had failed a drugs test.

He is serving a five and a half year sentence for robbery and firearms offences imposed at the High Court in Edinburgh in September 2003.

He was picked up by police at a friend’s house in Kirriemuir on Thursday after he tipped them off himself.

Hunter’s solicitor said his client had become involved in the “Dundee drugs scene” and become addicted to cocaine before carrying out a robbery with an imitation firearm to fund his habit.

He has since tested negative for drugs in 15 prison tests but the death of his father—and a few months earlier, his brother—had caused him to “lose his focus” and turn to cannabis again.

Upon obtaining a positive sample in the wake of this, prison authorities refused his request to travel to Stranraer, even under supervision.